
Class 
Book. 



,:■ 









Lessons in Anatomy 



FOR 



CHILDREN 



OF 



THE NEW CHURCH. 



THE 



Five Sensory Organs 



Lessons for Children of the New Church 



BY 



Evelyn E. Plummer 



The Academy of the New Church 



1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia 















Gift 
Publish 



PREFACE. 



This little treatise on the five sensory organs is a 
first attempt in gathering material for the instruction of 
children of the New Church in the science of Anatomy. 
No consistent plan has been followed in the presentation 
and arrangement of the material, but the cardinal prin- 
ciple has been steadily kept in view, to give as much 
instruction from writers on the physical organs as will 
interest the pupil, and by quotations from the Word and 
the Doctrines, to lead him to connect things material 
with things spiritual to which they correspond, and from 
which they have their existence, and thus to lead him to 
"the Greatest Man which is Heaven," and to the Lord. 

Pictures and plates, and if possible, models, repre- 
senting fully and clearly the objects under consideration, 
ought to be freely employed in connection with these 
lessons. With this end in view a number of illustrations 
have been borrowed from standard Anatomies, and in- 
serted in the text, which will be welcomed especially by 
those who have no other means of supplementing the 
instruction. 

The earlier parts of this book were printed and 
issued by a generous friend, but the later parts were 
printed in another city, and published by the Academy, 
which explains why paper, type and arrangement are 
not quite uniform throughout. 



Philadelphia, October, 1895=125. 



CONTENTS. 



The Eye: 

Leading Scripture Texts, ... 6 

Protections of the Eye, .... 7 

Summary of Protections, ... 12 

Scripture Texts, 13 

The Muscles of the Eye, ... 14 
General Divine Teaching con- 
cerning the Eye, 17 

Scripture Texts, 18 

Coats, Iris, Nerves, 19 

Correspondence of the Eye, . . 22 
Particular Divine Teaching con- 
cerning the Eye, 24 

Humors of the Eye, 28 

Divine Teachings, 32 

Eyes of Animals, 34 

The Ear: 

Leading Scripture Texts, ... 44 

The External Ear, 45 

Divine Teaching concerning the 

External Ear, 47 

The Middle Ear, 49 

Divine Teaching concerning the 

Eustachian Tube, 51 

The Internal Ear, 53 

Divine Teaching concerning the 

Ear, 56 

Ear-rings, 60 

Sound, and how it comes to the 

Ear, 61 

Ears of Animals, 66 

The Nose: 

Leading Scripture Texts, ... 70 

Description, 71 

Summary of Uses, 78 



Divine Teaching, 79 

Ornaments for the Nose, ... 83 
Noses of Animals, 88 

The Tongue : 

Leading Scripture Texts, ... 94 
General Description of the 

Tongue, 95 

Papillae, 97 

External Muscles. 102 

Internal Muscles, 105 

Blood-Vessels, 105 

Uses of the Tongue, 108 

Divine Teaching, Ill 

Abuses of the Tongue, . . . .118 
Tongues of Animals, . . . .121 

The Skin : 

Leading Scripture Texts, . . .128 

Introduction, 129 

The Cuticle, 129 

Heister and Leeuwenhoek on 

the Cuticle, 131 

Analysis of the Cuticle, . . . .133 
Swedenborg's Summary con- 
cerning the Cuticle, . . . 138 
Divine Teaching concerning the 

Cuticle, 140 

The Second or Middle Skin, . . 146 

The Cutis, 147 

Membranes, 154 

The Sense of Touch, 156 

Divine Teaching concerning 

Touch, . . 156 

Products of the Skin, . . . .161 
Divine Teaching concerning 
Hair, Feathers, and Wool, . 163 



The Eye. 



Ps. cxxxn. 4-5. — If I give sleep to mine eyes, to mine 

eye-lashes slumber, until I find a 
place for the Lord, habitations for the 
Strong one of Jacob. 

Ps. xxxii. 8. — I will make thee intelligent, and I will 

enlighten thee in the way which thou 
shalt go. I will counsel upon thee 
with mine eye. 

Ps. xxxiv. 15. — The eyes of the Lord are upon the 

just, and His ears are upon their cry. 

Ps. xxxiii. 18. — Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon 

them that fear Him ; upon them that 
expect His mercy. 

Ps. xciv. 9. — He that planteth the ear, shall He not 

hear? If He formeth the eye, shall 
He not behold ? 




The Eye. 



iiMtiffib^ 



Mouths of t. 
Meibomian 
glandtubes 



Puncta, laoryxK 




The Inner Surface of the Eyelids. 



Mcnl. nar i*J? 

The Lachrymal APPARATUS. 



The Eye. 



ITS PROTECTIONS. 

"The eye, you know, is a very tender organ. It is 
therefore guarded thoroughly, and it is very seldom hurt. 
But notice that it is just where it would be likely to be 
hurt if it were not thus guarded. It is right out in the 
front part of the head. It must be there for the mind 
to use it in seeing. And it is much of the time open. 
You would suppose then, that it must very often be struck 
and hit by things that are thrown about ; but it is really 
very seldom hit so as to hurt it much. 

"The parts about the eye are often injured, but the 
eye itself generally escapes. We often see the eyelids 
and the cheek black and blue from a blow, and yet the 
tender and delicate eye is as sound as ever. People say 
in such cases that the eye is black and blue, but this is 
not so ; the injury is all on the outside, and does not go 
into the eye. 

" Now let us see in what way the eye is guarded. 
It is in a deep, bony socket. There is bone all around 
it except in front. Then, too, see how the bones stand 
out all around it. The bone of the forehead juts over 
it. Below and to the outside stands out the cheek-bone, 



14 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

and the nose is its wall on the inside. Now you can 
see that a blow with a stick would be very likely to 
strike upon some of these walls of bone, and the eye 
would then escape. They are real walls of defense to 
the eye. A stick cannot hit the eye itself unless it goes 
with its end pointed to the eye. It must go in this way 
to avoid striking on these walls or parapets of bone by 
which the eye is surrounded. 

" But even if the stick gets past these bony walls, it 
may not hurt the eye after all. Perhaps you never 
thought what use there is in being able to wink so 
quickly. See what winking does. It shuts the eyelids 
over the eye, so that nothing can get into it unless it is 
something sharp enough to pierce the lids, and a blow 
will not hurt the eye, if the lids are closed, unless it is 
hard enough to bruise it through the lids. How quick 
is the working of that winking muscle ! The moment 
that the eye sees anything coming toward it that may 
injure it, this muscle shuts the eye out of sight as quick 
as a flash. It hardly seems as if there was time for a 
message to go from the eye to the brain, and then 
another, back, from the brain to that muscle in the lids. 
But all this happens. The nerve of the eye tells the 
mind of the danger, and the mind sends a message to 
the winking muscle. This is done so quickly that when- 
ever people speak of anything as being done very quickly, 
they are very apt to say that it was done in the twinkling 
of an eye. 

" But I have not told you of all that this winking 



Slitf.t 

H. OCULORtOTOR., N ABDUO! 
O. RA.M. NASO-CILIAfl. TWCEM, 




The Muscles of the Eye. 

From the Outside. 



quus 





The Muscles of the Eye. 

From Above. 



The Muscles of the Eyelid. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. I 5 

muscle does. It does something more than shut the eye 
in. It pushes it back in its socket, so that it is a little 
further out of the way of a blow. And it does not push 
it right against the hard bone of the socket ; there is a 
soft cushion of fat for it to press the eye against. And 
this is not all. When the eye sees a blow coming, this 
muscle acts so strongly that it wrinkles the skin of the 
eyelids and pulls down the eyebrow and draws up the 
cheek. 

" Now see how this guards the eye. The cheek and 
the evebrow are brought so near together that there is 
but little room for the blow to get at the eye ; and even 
if it does, the wrinkled skin of the lids makes a cushion 
over it that breaks the force of the blow. You can see 
that the blow would be much more apt to do harm if the 
winking muscle merely brought the lids together. As it 
is, a blow commonly hits on the eyebrow or cheek, or 
both, while the eye is safe shut up and pushed back in its 
cavern upon its cushions of fat. To see how much the 
bringing together of the cheek and eyebrow defends the 
eye, you must look at some one as he forcibly closes it. 
And if, at the same time, you put your finger on the 
parts, you will see how the cushions which all this wrink- 
ling makes over the eye and about its socket defend it 
from harm. 

"So you see that not only is the eye guarded by 
parapets of bone, but the busy winking muscle raises 
up cushions on them whenever the eye sees a blow 
coming. These cushions often save the bone from 



I 6 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

being cracked, and in this way also keep the eye from 
beine hurt. 

" Of what use do you think the hairs on the eyebrow 
are ? They are for good looks you will say. But they 
are for something more than this ; they are a defense to 
the eye. How this is, I will explain to you. You know 
what the eaves of a house are for when there is no trough 
to the roof. They keep the rain from running down 
from the roof to the sides of the house. They make it 
drop off to the ground a little way from the house. Just 
so the hairy eyebrows make the sweat of the forehead 
drop off on to the cheek, instead of running down into 
the eye. The eyebrows, then, are the eaves of the roof 
of the eye's house. 

"Perhaps you will ask what hurt the sweat would 
do if it should run down into the eye ? It would be very 
disagreeable ; and besides this, it would irritate the eye, 
and make it red. The eye would become inflamed. 

" The eyelashes, too, besides making the eye look 
well, are a defense to it. You know that there are often 
small things flying about in the air which we are not apt 
to see. If these fly against the eye, they generally hit 
against the lashes, and so are prevented from going into 
the eye. 

"The tears also are a defense to the eye. If any- 
thing happens to get past the eyelashes into the eye, how 
quick the tears flow to wash it out! Commonly the 
gland, or tear-factory, only makes tears enough to keep 
the eye a little moist ; but as soon as anything gets into 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 7 

the eye and irritates it, the tear-factory sets to work 
briskly and sends down the tears abundantly. At the 
same time the winking muscle keeps moving the lids, 
and generally what is in the eye is soon washed out. 

"Tears are flowing into the eye all the time. If 
they did not, the eyeball and the inside of the lids would 
become dry, and they would not move easily upon each 
other. You would have to keep wetting them with water 
to keep them from rubbing. The tear-factory, which is 
just above the eye, continually sends down, through 
some little tubes or ducts, just enough tears to make the 
motion of the eye and the lids easy. 

" But you ask where do the tears that are made go ? 
They do not commonly run out over the lids, and they 
must go somewhere. I will tell you about this. If you 
look at the eyelids of any one, you can see in each lid a 
little hole at the end of the ed^e toward the nose. The 
tears oo into these holes and down through a duct that 

o o 

ends in the nose. This duct may be called the sink 
drain of the eye, for the tears, after washing the eye, run 
off through it. These two little holes or mouths in the 
lids commonly take in all the tears as fast as they come 
to them ; but when we cry, the tear-factory makes tears 
so fast that these mouths cannot take them all in. The 
tears therefore overflow their banks — the lids — and run 
down on the cheeks." — From Hooker s Child's Book of 
Nature. 



1 8 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 



SUMMARY OF PROTECTIONS TO THE EYE. 

ist. — Projecting bones of the orbit. 

2d. — Muscles around the eye. 

3d. — Eyebrows. 
4th. — Eyelids. 
5 th. — Eyelashes. 

6th. — Cushions of fat around the ball. 
7th. — Moisture. 

In this borrowed account of the protections of the 
eye we are carefully taught how precious the eye is, but 
nowhere does it give us a hint of why it is so precious. 
Any child set to answer this question, would probably 
say "Why, to help us to see." Yes, but why is it im- 
portant that we should see ? Some older child, trained 
to think a little, may have thought about this truth that 
it is much easier to understand a thing by means of the 
eyes, than if described orally, or examined by the touch, 
and so may say: " Why, to help us understand things." 
True, but let us go a step further and inquire why do 
we need to understand things? Few children will be 
ready with the answer to this question, but any child in 
the New Church, old enough to study these lessons, is 
old enough to understand the answer. It is because 
we are born into this natural world purposely to have 
our spiritual senses developed and educated for heaven. 



Epithelial layer 

Mrmbrana Dta etm etil 

Canalu Sehltmvrti 

big. pertntatuBk 
i rid is 







.*<** 



<& 



Canal**, 
centralis 



Section of the Eyeball. 




Section of the Globe ok the Eye, showing Processes ov Hyaloid Membrane. 

i Sclerotic 2 Cornea. 3. Choroid connected anteriorly with (4) Ciliary ligament, and (5) 
Ciliary processes. 6. Iris. 7 . Pupil. 8. Retina. 9. Canal of Petit. 10. Anterior chamber con- 
Uining aqueous humor. ,,. Posterior chamber. ,-,. Crystalline lens , ,. Vitreou. humor i«. 
Neurillemma of the optic nerve. 16. Central artery of retina. 17. Processes of Hyalo.d Membrane. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 9 

Each one of our natural senses has a particular serv- 
ice to perform in this work. Our eyes have for their 
part to aid the understanding in seeing what is true, for 
that is the only way to learn to love what is good. 

Ps. xix. 9. — The commandments of the Lord are 
right, rejoicing the heart. The pre- 
cept of the Lord is pure, enlightening 
the eyes. 

Ps. cxlv. 15. — The eyes of all await Thee, and Thou 
eivest them their food in its time. 

Isa. xxxv. 5. — Then the eyes of the blind shall be 
opened and the ears of the deaf shall be 
opened. 

Isa. lii. io. — The Lord hath made bare the arm of 
His holiness in the eyes of all the nations, 
and all the ends of the earth have seen 
the salvation of our God. 

Matt. ix. 27-31. — And when Jesus departed thence two 
blind men followed Him, crying and 
saying: Son of David have mercy on us. 
And when He was come into the house 
the blind men came to him ; and Jesus 
said unto them : Believe ye that I am 
able to do this? They said unto him: 
Yea, Lord. 

Then touched He their eyes, sayino - : 
According to your faith be it unto you. 
And their eyes were opened and Jesus 



20 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 



strictly charged them, saying : See no 
man know it. 

But they, when they departed, published 
Him in all that country. 



THE EYE— ITS MUSCLES. 

In looking at the eye of the manikin (or at a picture 
of the eye) we notice first, on the outside of the ball, 
some red flat bands. 

They are the muscles that move the eye. Four of 
them are attached at about equal distances around the 
ball, one at the top of it, another at the bottom, one at 
the inner side next to the nose, and one at the outer side 
next to the temple ; the last two are about half-way be- 
tween the upper and the lower ones. You can see that 
they come nearer to each other as they approach the 
back part of the socket. There they come close to- 
gether and are fastened around what looks like a round 
white cord, but which really is the nerve of sight com- 
ing down to the eye from the brain where all the nerves 
be^in. 

These bands or muscles have been riven Latin names 

o 

from their position and from their direction. Thus one 
is called the Superior rectus muscle because it is attached 
to the superior or upper part of the eyeball and is a 
straight muscle ; rectus is a Latin word meaning straight. 
Then the lowest one is called the Inferior rectus because 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 21 

it is fastened on the under side of the ball, and it is also 
straight. The one nearest the nose is called the Internal 
rectus, and the one on the opposite side of the eye from 
this is called the External rectus. 

When we speak of them altogether, we call them 
the recti muscles. 

Besides these four, there are two others fastened 
to the ball of the eye, quite near those already de- 
scribed. But these do not go directly from the eye back 
to the furthest part of the socket, as do the straight 
ones. They have a slanting or oblique direction, and 
are therefore called the oblique muscles. The one at- 
tached to the upper side is called the Superior oblique, 
and the other attached underneath, is called the Inferior 
oblique. The Superior oblique slants toward the inner 
corner of the eye, where it becomes round and small, so 
as to pass through a little loop of cartilage, some- 
thing like half a ring fixed in a wall. After passing- 
through the loop or pulley it spreads out flat again and 
goes toward the back part of the socket with the 
others. The Inferior oblique is fastened to the under 
side of the eyeball close to the Inferior rectus ; it slants 
to the outer corner of the orbit, where it is attached. 

This makes six muscles that are attached to the 
ball of the eye. Their use is to draw and turn and pull 
the eye in every direction necessary to enable us to see 
any object. 

They do not all draw up or contract at the same 
time. One will have to relax and stretch out, while 



2 2 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

another on the opposite side of the eye is drawing up 
or contracting. Each muscular band is made up of a 
great many threads or fibres lying side by side. Each 
little thread of a muscle has a tiny thread of a nerve 
attached to it. 

These nerves, as you have learned, come down 
from the brain, and it is through these little tubes that 
the messages are sent back and forth from the brain to 
the eye, and thence back to the brain, where the soul 
has its court from which it controls all the body. Of 
all the muscles of the body, those of the eye are the 
quickest to obey the soul's command. 

If we wish to look to the right or to the left, above 
or below, a message speeds down the nerve like light- 
ning, and is received and obeyed in the same instant. 

This promptness reminds us of those angels who 
love the Lord so intensely that they find the deepest 
delight of their lives in learning and obeying His will. 
With them the learning it and the doing- it make one 
thing. 

There is another muscle not attached to the eye, 
although it comes forward from the same point where 
the others are attached in the back part of the socket. 

It passes over the ball of the eye, enters the upper 
eyelid, spreads out as a wide flat band, and ends at the 
very front edge where the lashes are. Its use is to 
draw the eyelid up. It has a long name, containing 
three words — the Levator Palpebral Superioris. The 
first word indicates its use of elevating or lifting ; the 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 23 

second is the Latin name for the eyelid, and the third- 
word indicates that it is the superior or upper eyelid. 

There is one more muscle that you will be inter- 
ested to learn about. It passes entirely around the 
orbit of the eye, and spreads itself out quite thin on the 
upper and lower lids. It can draw the lids together, 
so its use is just the opposite of the last one. It is the 
winking muscle mentioned in the first chapter. It also 
has a very long name — the Orbicularis Palpebrarum — 
which the older children may like to learn. 

The following extracts are from the Heavenly Doc- 
trines of the Lord's New Church, and contain teachings 
about the eye. 

A, C. 3676. — The eye is merely an organ of the body 
by which the internal man sees those things 
which are out of the body, or which are in 
the world. 

H. & H. 333. — In the Grand Man, which is heaven, all 
infants are in the [province of the eyes. 
From the circumstance that in the Grand 
Man, or heaven, infants are in the province 
of the eyes, it is also evident that they are 
under the immediate view and auspices of 
the Lord. 

A. C. 4407. — The eye is the most noble organ of the 
face, and communicates more immediately 
with the understanding than the rest of 
man's organs of sense. 



24 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

As the sight of the eye corresponds to 
the understanding, therefore also sight is 
attributed to the understanding, and is called 
intellectual sight ; those things also which 
man perceives are called the objects of that 
sight, and also in common discourse it is 
usual to say that objects are seen when they 
are understood. 

Matt. xx. 30-34. — And behold two blind men sitting 
by the wayside, when they heard that Jesus 
passed by, cried out, saying : Have mercy 
on us, O Lord, Son of David. 

31. — And the multitude rebuked them because 
they should hold their peace ; but they cried 
the more, saying, Have mercy on us, O 

Lord, Son of David. 

32. — And Jesus stood still and called them ; 
and said : What will ye that I shall do unto 

you ? 

33. — They say unto Him, Lord, that our eyes 
may be opened. 

34. — So Jesus had compassion and touched 
their eyes ; and immediately their eyes re- 
ceived sight, and they followed Him. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 25 



THE EYE— ITS COATS. 

If we were to cut down a little way into the ball of 
the eye, and then cut all around it, we would be able to 
peal off an outside layer, something as one would peel 
off the ouside layer of an onion. This peeled-off layer 
is the first layer or coat of the eye, and its name is the 
sclerotic, which is from a Greek word, meaning hard. 
Of course, this means that the sclerotic is of a harder 
and firmer texture than the two soft coats that lie 
under it, and which are protected by it. You can see 
the color and form of this coat by looking into any one's 
eye. It is usually of a pearly-white color outside, but 
inside, next to the second coat, it is brown. This inner 
side has little narrow depressions called grooves for 
nerves to lie in. 

But let us go back to the outside of the sclerotic 
coat. Just in front it has a round opening that is filled 
by a beautiful transparent membrane, called the cornea, 
that is as clear as the purest crystal. And there is 
something very curious about it. Just look into each 
others' eyes and see what a delicate thin-looking mem- 
brane it is. And yet it is about as thick as the sclerotic 
coat, and is made of a great many layers lying together 
so closely as to look like one layer. 

The cornea curves more than the sclerotic. In the 
picture of it you can see that it looks like part of a little 



2 6 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

ball stuck upon the larger ball of the sclerotic coat. 
This latter coat has also an opening behind, but different 
from the one in front. It is much smaller and admits the 
nerve of sight, the optic nerve, into the eye. 

When you look at the sclerotic coat, you can see 
that it has a very smooth, glassy look. This is owing to 
a thin, shining membrane, called the conjunctiva that 
covers all over the cornea and sclerotic coat and then ex- 
tends up over the under side of the eyelids to their very 
edges. 

Just under the sclerotic is the second coat, the 
choroid. The choroid coat is of a chocolate brown 
color and has two layers. The outside layer is made of 
larger vessels than the inside one, and so looks coarser. 
The inner one is a web of extremely fine, delicate 
blood-vessels, especially fine at the very back part of 
the coat. 

Right in the centre of the front part of the choroid 
coat is the pupil ; this is from a word meaning a babe, 
because it is right in the pupil that you see the tiny 
image of any person, an image small enough to be a 
very little babe. 

The pupil, as you see it in any eye, appears to be a 
black spot, but it is in reality a round hole right through 
the choroid coat. All around this hole is the colored 
part of the eye that is of such different colors in dif- 
ferent eyes. For this reason it is called the iris, which 
means a rainbow. 

The iris has a great many threads or fibres In it 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 27 

that run round and round the pupil. Like the fibres of 
other muscles they have the power of contracting or 
drawing up, and of relaxing or stretching out. We have 
control over some of these muscles about the eye ; for 
instance, we can make the Recti muscles, and the 
Levator Palpebral Superioris contract or relax at our 
pleasure. But we have no control over these fibres of 
the iris that run around the pupil. They will draw up 
and make the pupil smaller when we look at the sun- 
shine, in order to keep a part of it out of the eye, as too 
much light might injure it, and they will relax and make 
the pupil larger when we are in the dark. 

The optic nerve, the nerve of sight, coming down 
from the brain, pierces the choroid coat behind, as you 
can see by looking at the eye of the manikin, or at a 
picture of it. 

The inside coat of the eye is called the retina, from 
the Latin word rete, which means an interlacement or 
weaving of fibres. It is made of the nerve of sight, the 
optic nerve that pierces the sclerotic and choroid coats 
and then swells out into a beautiful almost transparent 
ball. You can look into the retina of the manikin's eye, 
and see a pretty little round empty room with some very 
fine red lines representing arteries on its walls. But 
the retina of the human eye is never empty during life. 
Transparent and delicate as it seems, the coat of the 
retina is made up of several layers. But of them you 
can learn better when you are older. 

It is on the back part of the retina, inside, that the 



28 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

image of any object that we see is thrown. No matter 
how big the object may be — even a large extent of the 
surface of the earth — a tiny image of it can lie in the 
tiny space in the back part of the retina. And it is the 
impression of this that flashes like lightning through 
the optic nerve up to the brain where it is presented to 
the mind. 

You have often been taught that all heaven is in 
the form of a Grand Man. In this Grand Man there 
are societies of angels whose business it is to receive 
new-comers from the different earths just as our lips 
receive food. Then there are some that receive these 
new-comers and judge of their character and quality 
just as our tongues judge of the character and quality 
of our food. There are other societies of angels that 
perform other uses like the uses of the different organs 
and members of the human body. There are societies 
of angels that perform the same use in the Grand Man 
that our eyes perform for our bodies. And what is 
wonderful, the performance of these different uses by the 
angels unites them to us so that they can take care of 
and protect the different parts of our spiritual bodies, 
and through them they can take care of and protect 
our natural bodies. Without this care and protection, 
we could not take a single step, or breathe a single 
breath. 

It seems as if it were the angels who do this work, 
but it really is the Lord who does it through them, flow- 
ing down with His love and wisdom into all the angels 



> LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 29 

of all the heavens, and thence through good spirits into 
the souls of men, keeping them in life every moment, 
and giving them the love of working and the power to 
work. 

It is like the ladder that Jacob saw in his dream : 
" Set upon the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, 
and behold, the angels of God ascending and descending 
on it. 

"And behold, the Lord stood above it." 

It is not possible for us, while we live in this world, 
to get a full idea of how intensely the angels love to be 
sent to take care of us. 

The Lord only knows it, and sends just the right 
angels to each person on earth to watch over him, and 
do their utmost to help him prepare for heaven, where 
they are so happy. If the angels' love for human beings 
be so great, what must be the love of the Lord ? 

The Heavenly Doctrines have a good deal to say 
about the angels who perform the use of the eyes in the 
Grand Man, and you will be glad to read about the 
Heavens in which they dwell. 

First in the Arcana Ccelestia No. 4403, we read that 
" They who are at the eyes are such as are intelligent 
and wise." 

Then in Arcana Ccelestia No. 4628, is a description 
of one of their heavens. 

A. C. 4628. — The eye, or rather its sight, corresponds 
especially to those societies in the other life 
which are in paradisiacal scenery ; they ap- 



30 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

pear above, in front, a little to the right where 
there are presented gardens in living view 
with trees and flowers of so many genera and 
species that those which grow throughout the 
whole earth bear but a small proportion of 
them in number. 

In each single object contained in those 
paradises there is something of intelligence 
and wisdom which beams forth ; so that you 
would say that the inhabitants dwell to- 
gether in paradises of intelligence and wis- 
dom ; these principles are what affect the in- 
habitants from the interiors, and thereby not 
only gladden the sight, but the understanding 
also at the same time. 

This paradisiacal scenery is in the first 
Heaven, in the very entrance to the interiors 
of that Heaven. 

This Heaven is distinguished into several 
Heavens, to which all the things in the 
cameras of the eye correspond ; there is a 
Heaven, in which are atmospheres of differ- 
ent colors, where the universal aura glitters, 
as if it consisted of gold, silver, pearls, pre- 
cious stones, flowers in their least forms and 
of innumerable things besides ; there is a 
rainbow Heaven where the most beautiful 
rainbows, great and small, are variegated with 
most splendid colors. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 3 1 

A. C. 1 623. — As to what respects the rainbow splendors, 
it is to be observed, that there is, as it were, 
a rainbow Heaven, where the whole atmos- 
phere consists of very small continued rain- 
bows. In this Heaven are all they who 
appertain to the province of the interior eye. 
The whole atmosphere or aura therein 
consists of such splendors. 

Around is the form of a very large rain- 
bow, encompassing- the whole Heaven, most 
beautiful to behold, being composed of sim- 
ilar smaller rainbows which are images of 
the larger. 
The varieties and variations of the rainbow are in- 
definite. It has been given me to see some of them, and 
in order that some idea may be formed of the nature of 
their variety * * * * it may be expedient to de- 
scribe just one or two. 

There appeared to me the form of a larger rainbow 
that thence I might know of what nature and quality 
they are in their least forms. The light was most per- 
fectly white, encompassed with a sort of circumference, 
in the centre of which was an obscure, and as it were 
earthy point, around which was spread a most refulgent 
brightness which was variegated and discriminated by 
another brightness with yellowish points like little stars ; 
besides these were other variegations occasioned by 
flowers of divers colors which entered into the first most 
lucid appearance, and these colors flowed, not from a 



32 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

white, but from a flame-colored brightness, and was all' 

representative of things celestial and spiritual. 

A. C. 4412. — There was a certain person with whom I 
was acquainted in the life of the body, but 
not as to the mind and interior affections ; 
he occasionally discoursed with me in the 
other life, but for a little while at a distance.. 
In general, he manifested himself by pleasant 
representations, for he could present things 
which delighted, such as colors of every kind 
and beautiful colored forms ; he could also 
introduce infants beautifully decorated as 
angels, and several like things which were 
pleasant and delightful ; he acted by a soft 
and orentle influx into the tunic of the left 
eye ; by such things he insinuated himself 
into the affections of others for the end of 
pleasing and delighting their life. 

It was told me by the angels that such are 
they who belong to the coats of the eye, and 
that they communicate with the paradisiacal 
heavens, where truth and good are repre- 
sented in a substantial form. 

H. & H. 450. — The celestial angels who attend upon a 
resuscitated person, do not leave him, because 
they love every one. But if the spirit be of 
such a character that he can no longer con- 
tinue in the company of celestial angels, he 
desires to depart from them. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 33 

When this occurs, angels from the Lord's 
spiritual kingdom come to him and give him 
the use of light, for before he saw nothing 
but only thought. 

I was also shown how this was done. 
Those angels seemed, as it were, to roll off 
the coat of the left eye toward the septum 
of the nose, that the eye might be opened, 
and sight be given. 

*j» »j* ?f» *%+ *j^ 

When the coat of the eye seems to have 
been rolled off, something lucid, but indis- 
tinct appears, like what is seen through the 
eyelids on first awaking from sleep. This 
obscure light seemed to me of a sky-blue 
color, but I was afterward told that the color 
varies with different persons. 
Mark viii. 22-25 — And he cometh to Bethsaida ; and 
they bring a blind man unto Him and beseech 
Him to touch him. 

And He took the blind man by the hand, and 
led him out of the town, and when He had 
spit on his eyes, and put His hands upon 
him, he asked him if he saw aught. 
And he looked up, and said, I see men as 
trees, walking. 

After that, He put hands again upon his eyes, 
and made him look up, and he was restored, 
and saw every man clearly. 



34 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 



HUMORS OF THE EYE. 

The three coats of the eye, the sclerotic, the choroid, 
and the retina do not lie closely attached to each other 
in front. 

You can see by the pictures of them that they are 
separated by tiny little spaces. These spaces are filled 
with fluids, or humors as they are called, of different kinds. 

The first humor, in the space between the cornea 
and the choroid coat, is called the aqueous humor, from 
the Latin word " aqua," which means water. 

This watery fluid or humor lies between the first and 
second coats in the front part of the eye. The aqueous 
humor fills this narrow front chamber full, and then 
flows through the pupil into another narrower space 
behind the choroid coat called the back chamber of the 
eye. The back wall of this back chamber is made by 
another humor, so clear and transparent that it is called 
the crystalline humor or crystalline lens. It is called 
a lens because its shape has some resemblance to the 
shape of a lens. 

The crystalline humor or lens is a very interesting 
part of the eye. It lies in a rounded depression in the 
front part of the vitreous humor that looks like a little 
nest. It is inclosed in a beautiful delicate sac that is as 
clear and transparent as itself and exactly fits it. This 
sac is called the capsule. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 35 

In order to examine it well, the crystalline humor 
must be taken out of its capsule, then you can see that 
it consists of layer within layer, something like those of 
an onion. 

These layers are not all of the same degree of soft- 
ness. The outside one is the softest ; it is almost liquid ; 
the next one is a little harder, something like jelly, and 
the very centre is harder still, about as hard as a little 
round ball of gum arabic. But all the layers, as men- 
tioned before, are of a pure crystalline transparency, so 
that the light, coming- in through the cornea and the 
aqueous humor may pass through this lens also, on its 
way to the back part of the retina. For it is by means 
of the rays of light that enter the eye and pass through 
it that the image of any object is thrown there. 

The third and last humor of the eye fills the ball 
of the retina. It is not so watery as the aqueous humor 
and not so hard as the centre of the crystalline humor. 
It is more like jelly — a thin colorless jelly. It has a 
glistening, glassy look, and is therefore called vitreous, 
which means glassy. 

It has also its own covering, but this is not called a 
capsule; it is called the hyaloid membrane. It surrounds 
the vitreous humor behind inside of the retina, but in 
front it comes forward to the rim or circumference of the 
crystalline lens that lies right in front of the retina 
and surrounds the rim and holds the lens in its place 
just like a brooch in its setting, only this setting is a 
beautiful band or crown of radiated or rayed-out fibres. 



36 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

As we have now learned a little of the names and 
forms of the parts through which the light passes in 
going to the retina, let us follow the rays from the be- 
ginning to the end. 

First, they pass through the conjunctiva, and the 
many plates of the cornea into the aqueous humor that 
fills the front and back chambers of the eye ; then 
through the different parts of the crystalline lens into 
the front part of the retina, and through the vitreous 
humor and its covering, the hyaloid membrane, to the 
back part of the retina, where they stop. There, by 
some wonderful process the light paints an image of the 
object that we see; and, as before stated, an accurate 
impression of this image flashes up to the brain where 
the mind takes note of it. 

There is much more to be learned about the eye. 
In fact, these lessons are only the beginning of knowl- 
edge concerning it. But having made this beginning, 
you can, in some future time, go on with delight to 
learn a great deal more. Especially if you now learn 
carefully what the Heavenly Doctrines teach about it, 
namely, that the eye is only the means of sight, it does 
not see. It is the understanding that sees, for the Doc- 
trines teach that the understanding is the eye of the 
soul. (A. C. 3670.) It is interesting to know that the 
eye, whenever mentioned in the Word, means the under- 
standing. We can easily comprehend this, for when a 
person understands a subject clearly, he says : " I see 
it." And constantly this eye of the soul uses the eye of 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. $7 

the body to see objects in this world ; and every natural 
object rightly looked at enables the understanding to see 
and know more clearly the things of the spiritual world. 
The more clearly we see spiritual things or truths, the 
more intelligently we can obey them, until seeing and 
obeying become one in our lives. 

And when we have seen enough of earthly objects ; 
having made all the use of seeing in this world that is 
necessary for us — then the spirit — the real, living, 
seeing, body will be separated and withdrawn by the 
Lord from the earthly body, which, with all its organs, 
will at once begin to lose the human form, and decay and 
crumble into dust if left unmolested long enough. 

But we shall awake to conscious life in the other 

world, where " Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither 

have entered into the heart of man the things which God 

hath prepared for them that love Him." 

A. C. 1970. — By genuine visions are meant visions or 

sights of those objects which really exist in 

the other life, and which are nothing but real 

things which may be seen by the eyes of the 

spirit, but not by the eyes of the body, and 

which appear to man when his interior sight 

is opened by the Lord. 

This interior sight is that of the spirit, into 
which also he comes, when being separated 
from the body he passes into the other life ; 
for a man is a spirit clothed with a body. 
Such were the visions of the prophets. 



38 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

When this sight is opened, then the things 
which exist among spirits are seen in a 
clearer light than that of the mid-day sun of 
this world. 

A. C. 1972. — As to what concerns the visions, or rather 
sights which appear before the eyes of the spirit, 
they are more and more interior. Those 
which I have seen in the world of spirits I 
saw in a clear light ; but more obscurely the 
things which exist in the Heaven of angelic 
spirits, and still more obscurely those which 
exist in the Heaven of angels. 

A. C. 1973. — To relate all the kinds of visions would take 
too much room, — their variety being so great ; 
for illustration, however, it may be expedient 
to mention two, from which the nature of the 
rest may appear. 

A. C. 1974. — After a disturbed sleep, about the first watch, 
there was presented a most pleasant sight, 
consisting of garlands as of laurel, perfectly 
fresh, disposed in a most beautiful order, 
having a sort of living motion of such ele- 
gance and neatness as cannot be described 
for their beauty and harmony, and for the 
affection of blessedness which thence flowed. 
They were in a double series at a little dis- 
tance from each other, arranged together to 
a considerable length, and constantly varying 
their state of beauty. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 39 

Afterwards there succeeded another sight 
still more beautiful, in which was somewhat 
of celestial happiness, but it was only ob- 
scurely visible. It consisted of infants en- 
gaged in celestial sports, who affected the 
mind in a manner inexpressible. 

When these sights were passed, I dis- 
coursed with spirits concerning them, who 
confessed that they had seen the first in like 
manner as I had done, but the other only ob- 
scurely, so that they could not be positive 
what it was. Hence there arose indignation 
among them, and afterwards by degrees, 
envy, because it was said that angels and 
infants saw it. 

».*.* •*.• »1> ml» *t* •*.-» 

•J» »J» WjW «J» »J» «J» 

Their envy was such that it not only 

caused in them the utmost uneasiness, but 

even anguish and interior pain, and yet it 

was occasioned solely by this circumstance 

that they did not see the second sight as well 

as the first. 

The eyes have a great influence upon the appetite. 

If we see an article of food of which we are very fond, 

at once the salivary glands begin to act and pour their 

juices into the mouth. In common speech it " makes the 

mouth water," while the tissues of the mouth and 

stomach seem to demand it earnestly. 

But if the article of food presented to our eyes be 



40 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

very disagreeable to us, instantly the little ducts and 
passages close up. There is no saliva upon the tongue 
ready to receive the unpleasant morsel, and if we persist 
in looking at it, the stomach will express its dislike in a 
very violent manner. 

In the preceding lessons you have been taught 
about the organ called the eye, through which the soul 
sees into this world. 

You have also been taught of many things seen in 
the other world. All of this is concerning the human eye. 

The following lessons are about the eyes of animals. 
Those of many beasts are made like ours — they seem to 
be quite as perfectly constructed, and some of them can 
see much more perfectly than human beings. 

But there is this remarkable difference. What 
they see concerns only their life in this world. What we 
see concerns not only our life here, but chiefly our life 
in the spiritual world. 

But the eyes of less perfect animals are constructed 
differently. When you are older you can study about 
the use of the eyes of different animals, and you will find 
this to be a very interesting study. 

Some animals have no eyes, as oysters, clams, and 
fishes living in caves. 

In animals of a very low grade the eye consists of 
an optic nerve which terminates in a loop covered with 
a coloring matter called pigment. 

This is the simplest kind of an eye, and is called an 
ocellus. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 4 1 

Several such eyes grouped together are called 

ocelli. 

Goadby, p. 221. — The Leech has ten ocelli dotting the 
upper margin of the expanded suctorial 
lip. 

The Sea-worm has four of them, quite 
large ones, on the upper part of the head, 
and nearly one hundred smaller ones in 
rows and groups in all the prominent lobes 
about the mouth. But in animals of a little 
higher grade the eyes are reduced to two. 

Thus the Snail has one simple eye or 
ocellus mounted on the tip of each of its two 
long tentacles. These eyes consist of a 
globular lens, with a transparent skin in 
front (cornea), a colored membrane behind 
(choroid coat), and a nervous network 
(retina) behind that membrane. 

Packard, p. 280. — Insects, flies for instance, have com- 
pound eyes. In these the rounded or globe- 
shaped cornea is made up of a vast number 
of little six-sided corneas crowded together, 
forming the basis of long, tiny eyes that 
are cone-shaped. A side view of these cone- 
shaped bodies makes them appear like a vast 
number of tiny bottles lying side by side. 
The bottoms of the bottles form the facets or 
corneas, and their small ends meet at the 
optic nerve behind. A thread from the nerve 



42 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

passes into each little bottle or cone (giving 
the power of seeing to each one). 

In insects these eyes form rounded bodies 
variously colored — white, yellow, red, green, 
purple, brown, or black. 

In Lobsters and Crabs, the eyes are on a 
sort of stem, and muscles attached to them 
under the sclerotic coat enable them to turn 
and move. But other animals of this kind 
have immovable eyes. 

The eyes of the Lobster are constructed 

on the same plan as those of insects with 

one exception. The facets in the eyes of 

insects are six-sided, while in the Lobster 

they are square. 

In the eyes of fishes which often dive down deep 

into the ocean, where they are under great pressure, and 

then come up to the surface, where they are exposed to the 

full blaze of the sunshine, the sclerotic coat is not merely 

a tough fibrous membrane, but it is strengthened by a 

cartilaginous cup, and sometimes by one made of bone. 

The cornea of fishes is generally flat. The Owl has 

a very rounding or convex cornea, but the crystalline 

lens is flat. 

In the Cod and Haddock, on the outside of the 
choroid coat is a most beautiful membrane of a brilliant 
silver shine. 

Animals living entirely in the water, have neither 
eyelids nor tears. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 43 

The Shark, however, has eyelids, while the Snake 
has none. 

The eyes of animals that have a backbone are gen- 
erally on opposite sides of the head, but in the Flat- 
fishes both are on the same side. Usually both eyes 
see the same object, but in most fishes they are set so 
far back that each eye sees a different object. 

The pupil in most of the Vertebrates is round, but 
it may be diamond-shaped as in frogs, or vertically oval 
as in crocodiles and cats, or transversely oval as in 
geese, doves, and horses, as well as in all animals that 
chew the cud. (Orton, page 184.) 

In proportion to the size of the animal, the eyes of 
the Cuttle-fish are the most perfect and the largest of all 
the animals without a backbone. 

They resemble the eyes of more perfect animals in 
having a crystalline lens, with a chamber in front (open, 
however, to the sea-water) and a chamber behind filled 
with vitreous humor. (Orton, p. 182.) 

Insects do not have a crystalline lens, but the cornea 
is constructed so as to act as a lens. It is usually 
rounded before and behind, so as to act as the crystalline 
lens in higher animals. 

<z> 

In many animals the cornea is small compared to 
the size of the sclerotic coat ; but in the porcupine the 
cornea extends over half the ball of the eye. 

Birds have very large eyes compared with the size 
of their bodies. 

There is a delicate black membrane in the eves of 



44 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

birds called the pecten, or marsupiam, that does not exist 
in the human eye. It begins in the back part or bottom 
of the eye, pierces the vitreous humor, also the retina 
and choroid coat, and attaches itself to the crystalline 
lens. (In some birds it does not go so far.) 

It is highly vascular (or filled with vessels), and is 
folded exactly like the plaits of a fan. 

An artery and a vein are supplied to each fold. 
When removed from the eye and pulled open, it may 
be spread out into a strip of continuous ribbon-shaped 
membrane. The use of the marsupiam is not well- 
known, but it is believed to be a means of bringing more 
blood into the vitreous humor to nourish it. 

Many animals, as the cat, have a membrane with a 
brilliant metallic lustre, usually green or pearly, lining 
the back part of the retina. 

This makes the eyes of such animals luminous in 
the dark. 

Encyclopedia of Comp. Anat., Vol. I, Aves. — 
Birds have three eyelids, two of them move vertically, 
(like the human eye) and the other sweeps over the 
eyeball horizontally from the inner to the outer side of 
the globe. 

This is a very thin membrane, transparent in some 
birds, in others of a pearly-while color. 

There are but few birds that possess eyelashes. 
Of these the Ostrich is an example ; also the Horn-bills 
and the Owls. But in Owls they are to be considered 
rather as feathers with short barbs than eyelashes. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 45 

The eyes of animals express their character much 
more clearly than those of human beings. This is be- 
cause they are not capable of thinking about their ex- 
pression and correcting or concealing it. 

The eyes of birds of prey have a fierce and cruel 
look. 

Ferocious beasts express their evil nature in their 
eyes. 

The comfortable easy life generally led by cats has 
not changed their nature, which is evil. Their eyes are 
not pleasant to look at, especially in the dark. 

Serpents use their eyes to charm their prey, render- 
ing it helpless by the steady gaze of their glittering eyes, 
which have an infernal expression. How different is the 
timid, gentle look in the eye of a dove ! 

Gentle beasts also have very pleasing eyes, such as 
oxen and cows and sheep. There is an affecting, 
pathetic look in the eyes of the doe. There is a pretty 
story of one whose little fawn was about to be carried 
off by a man on horseback. The doe ran and placed 
her forefeet against the horse's side, while tears ran 
down from her eyes. This touched the feelings of the 
man so much that he dismounted and placed the fawn 
by its mother's side. 



The Ear and Nose. 



Ps. xciv. 9. — He that planteth the ear, shall He not 
hear? 

Isa. lix. 1. — Behold the Lord's hand is not shortened, 
that He cannot save, and His ear is not 
heavy, that He cannot hear. 

Ps. lxxviii. 1. — Hearken, O my people, to My law- 
incline your ear to the words of My 
mouth. 

Ps. v. 1. — Attend to my words, O Lord, perceive 
my solicitude. 

Ps. xxxi. 2 — Incline unto me Thine ear, speedily 
liberate me. 

Rev. ii. 29. — He that hath an ear, let him hear what 
the Spirit saith to the Churches. 

Mark, vii. 32-35. And they bring to Him one that 

was deaf and speaking with difficulty, 
and they beseech Him that He might 
put His hand upon Him. 

And having taken him from the people 
by himself, He cast His fingers into his 
ears and spitting out, He touched his 
tongue. 

And having looked up into heaven, 
He sighed and saith to him, Eph- 
phatha, that is, Be opened. 

And straightway his ears were opened 
and was loosed the bond of his tongue, 
and he spake rightly. 



Crura 
fu.rca.ta 




intcTtragiea 



The Auricle. 



The Muscles of the Auricle. 




Incus 
W~Canalis Fallopiae 
-Ftmrstra avail's 

Promontarlum, 
Metnbr. tympani 



Cavum. tympani 
Mi tens. tymp. 
ulc.pr. memhr. tymp. 
Iricis. Sanlorin. 

The External Auditory Canal and the Tympanic Cavity 



The Bar. 



THE EXTERNAL EAR. 

The only parts of the ear that we can see are the 
auricle, or outside ear, and a little of the passage called 
the auditory canal, leading into the head. 

You have learned, in the Infant Lessons, that these 
form only the external part of the ear, and that the 
most important parts are deep in the head. 

They are covered over, even there, by a very hard 
roof of bone — the hardest bone in the body. 

The entire ear is divided into three distinct parts, 
namely, the external ear, already mentioned ; next, the 
middle ear ; and beyond that — or more deeply in the 
head — is the internal ear. This internal ear, as you can 
see by a picture of it, is farthest from the entrance or 
auditory canal. 

The auricle, as you can tell by taking it between 
your fingers, is made of a substance which is a good 
deal softer than bone, and harder than flesh, called 
cartilage. It has many folds and high places, like little 
ridges or hills, with valleys and plains between them* 



46 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

Each ridge and fold has a name, of which you may, 
with profit, learn two — the concha, or low space around 
the entrance to the auditory canal, and the lobule, 
which is the fleshy, rounded base of the auricle. 

But the cartilage does not form the entire auricle ; 
there is none in the lobule. 

The auricle has two sets of muscles ; one set 
spreads over different portions of the ear, but does not 
go beyond it ; and the other set connects it with the 
side of the head. 

In man these muscles are very small, thin and flat, 
and not much under the control of the will, so that the 
human ear never moves back and forth ; but in very 
many animals these muscles are extremely flexible, 
giving the ear power to flap up and down at pleasure, 
and to take positions that express its owner's feelings. 

The cartilage of the auricle passes into the auditory 
canal, and forms it for about half its length. Then it 
becomes bony to the end of it. Of course, the entire 
canal is lined with a membrane, or thin skin ; and at its 
end another membrane, called the drum, or tympanum, 
is stretched over it, entirely closing the passage or canal. 

Just where the cartilage ends, and the bony part 
of the auditory canal begins, lie the little factories that 
produce the substance called ear-wax. which protects 
the ear from the visits of insects, its odor being, gener- 
ally, strong enough to repel them. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 47 

But if an insect does not mind this, and crawls into 
it, he is liable to be smothered, as it is soft and will 
stick to him. 

The following extracts from the Heavenly Doc- 
trines of the Lord's New Church are about the exter- 
nal ear. What is related took place in the spiritual 
world, and Swedenborg wrote it down: 

A. G. 4656. — There was a spirit who spoke with me 
at the left auricle, where are the elevator mus- 
cles of the auricle. He said that he does 
not reflect at all upon what others say, but 
merely takes it in with his ears. When he 
spoke, he, as it were, belched out his words. 
Hence, it was given to know that interior 
things were not in his speech, thus but little 
of life. It was said that such as attend but 
little to the sense of a thing, are they who 
belong to the cartilaginous and bony part of 
the external ear. 

A. C. 4654. — There were spirits with me who flowed 
rather strongly into the thought, when things 
which were of Providence were being 
treated of. 

The angels said that they were spirits 
who, when they lived in the body, and 
prayed for anything, and did not obtain it, 
were indignant, and on this account led 
themselves into doubt concerning Provi- 



48 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

dence ; but still, when they were out of that 
state, they exercised piety according to 
what others said ; thus they had been in 
simple obedience. It was said that such 
belong to the province of the external ear, 
or that of the auricle. They also appeared 
there while they spoke with me. 

A. C. 4657. — There are spirits who have sometimes 
spoken with me, but muttering, and that 
nearer the left ear, as if they wanted to speak 
in the ear, so that no one should hear. 
But it was given to tell them that this is 
not fit in the other life, because it shows 
that they have been whisperers, and thence 
they have also now been imbued with the 
nature of whispering, and that many of them 
are such that they observe the vices and 
blemishes of others, and tell them to their 
companions when no one hears, or while 
others are present, into the ear ; and that 
they see and interpret all things in a sinister 
manner, and set themselves above others. 

In the other life such speech is heard 
more loudly than open speech. 

S. D. 4779 m. — There was a spirit with me, who, while 
such things were treated of as related to 
Providence, inflowed very powerfully into the 
thought * * * and as often as 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 49, 

he did so I was harassed with anxious 
thoughts about that matter. It was after- 
wards said to me that the spirit who did this 
pertained to the province of the external 
ear, and, in fact, to that of the auricle, 
where the fleshy lobe hangs beneath the 
cartilaginous part, or, rather, where the thick 
membranous cartilage is; and it was said 
that his disposition was such, that when, in 
the life of the body, he had prayed for any- 
thing and did not obtain it, he would be 
exceedingly indignant, and come into doubt 
about Providence. But yet, when he was 
out of that state, he had still obediently 
practised piety. 



THE MIDDLE EAR. 

The middle ear is a small space just behind the 
drum. This space of the middle ear is also called the 
tympanum. It contains three bones : 

One is shaped something like a hammer, and is 
called the malleus. 

One is shaped something like an anvil, and is called 
the incus. 

One is shaped something like a stirrup, and is called 
the stapes. 



50 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

These bones are bound closely together by mus- 
cles. The hammer or malleus touches the drum of the 
ear, then the anvil or incus comes next and still farther 
on is the stirrup or stapes, which touches the wall at the 
farther side of the middle ear. 

In this farther wall is an opening called the oval 
window, only it is not open at all, for the foot or bottom 
of the stirrup fits into it and closes it up. Even when 
the stirrup is taken out, this window is not entirely open 
— a thin membrane is stretched over it on the other 
side of the wall, like another little drum. 

There is also another little window in this same 
wall but of a different shape ; it is quite round, so it is 
called the round window. It has a membrane stretched 
over it, but it is not stopped up by a bone, as is the oval 
window. 

The use of the bones in the middle ear is to con- 
vey the vibrations of sounds through it to the nerve of 
hearing which is still farther on, lying in the internal 
ear. It is well known that sounds travel through solid 
substances much more quickly and distinctly than 
through the air. 

There is something else besides these bones in the 
middle ear that is very interesting. 

It is a passage called the Eustachian tube, 
leading down from the ear into the pharynx. The 
pharynx is the passage through which the air goes down 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 51 

to the lungs, in breathing. Therefore the air can pass 
through it up into the Eustachian tube. 

If there were none going through the Eustachian 
tube up into the middle ear, the air outside would press 
very hard against the drum, just as it presses against 
a thimble or small cup when you suck the air out of it, 
and this would stretch the drum of the ear, which is a 
delicate membrane, and, perhaps, displace the bones, 
thus causing deafness. 

The Eustachian tube is mentioned several times in 
the Memorable Relations of our Lord's New Church. 

In the Arcana Ccelestia, in reference to the people 
of the Most Ancient Church, it is written: — 

A. C. 1118.— Their breathing * * * did 

not enter the ear of another through the 
external way and beat on something which 
is called the drum of the ear, but through a 
certain way within the mouth, and indeed 
through something there which is called at 
the present day, the Eustachian tube. 

A. C. 7859. — The breathing (of the spirits of Mars) 
entered through the mouth, and through a 
way within the mouth, in fact through the 
Eustachian tube, into the brain. 

A. C. 10587.— (The inhabitants of the Fourth Earth) 
think within themselves, and the ideas of 
thought are communicated to another by 



52 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

means of a certain gliding into the interiors 
of the ears, through a way unknown on this 
earth, yet known to learned anatomists, for 
there is a certain canal within the mouth, 
which is called the Eustachian tube, 
which is open in the mouth, and terminates 
in the chamber of the ear, and is encompass- 
ed with a thin membrane. Through this 
canal the respiratory air glides with a 
delicate sound and thus the speaking thought 
is communicated. This is effected by means 
of the atmosphere. 

Spiritual Diary, 1541. — The speech (of the inhabitants 
of Mars) is a certain tacit speech, and is of a 
more subtle atmosphere, which is directed 
towards the mouth and there it enters, and so 
proceeds through the Eustachian tube, which, 
as appears, is their organ of hearing. With 
such a speech did one speak to me. It 
entered through the lips, the fibres of which 
were disposed so as to receive its diversities ; 
and so it penetrated through the Fallopian 
aqueduct, and thus upwards. It is very 
clearly perceived, and is a far fuller and 
more perfect speech than that of the ear, for 
it carries many things all at once. 

S. D. 1658. — The sound of the speech (of the spirits of 
Jupiter) flows in through a different way, 
namely, through the Eustachian tube. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 53 



THE INTERNAL EAR. 

If the stirrup be taken out of the oval window into 
which it fits so nicely,and the membrane be cut away that 
is stretched over it like another little drum, it would 
open a passage into the innermost part of the ear that 
is called the internal ear. 

This is the most important part of the whole ear. 
We might compare it to an entrance hall or vestibule 
of a house, with a room on each hand; only in the ear, 
the room on each side of the vestibule has a different 
name and shape from the rooms in a house. 

The room, however, that you would enter by going 
through the oval window, is called the vestibule; the 
room to the right is made of passages — three of them, 
as you can see by a picture of them — that curve round, 
like a half-circle, so they are called the semi-circular 
canals. 

The room on the left has curving passages also 
but of a different shape. 

These passages curve spirally, very much like a 
snail shell, so this room is called the cochlea, a word 
meaning snail shell. t 

All three of these rooms in the internal ear, 
taken together, are called the labyrinth, because they 
have passages that lead round and round, from which, 



54 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

if you were small enough to get into them, you 
would find it very difficult to get out — just like a laby- 
rinth. These winding passages of the labyrinth are 
channeled in the hard bone, so they are called the bony 
labyrinth. They are all lined with a membrane that 
adheres more closely to their walls than the papering to 

the walls of a room. 

■-■•■■ 

And there is something in them that is very inter- 
esting. It is another labyrinth inside, or within the one 
you have just learned about, but made of a membrane* 
It has the same general shape as the bony labyrinth, 
but is so much smaller that there is room for a fluid 
around it, in which it lies. And this is not all. The mem- 
branous labyrinth is itself full of a fluid; it is into this 
fluid, which looks like water, that the nerve of hearing, 
the auditory nerve, comes down from the brain and 
spreads out ; it divides into delicate little twigs, each 
tiny twig ending in a tiny, little, soft body called a 
gland. 

You might think, perhaps, that this membranous 
labyrinth floats quite free in the bony canals, rising and 
falling and bumping against the hard walls all around. 
But this is not so. It is tied at various points by little 
bands and cords so as to keep it floating in the centre, 
equally distant from the walls on all sides. 

Arteries come into all these winding passages and 
spread themselves out into a net-work of little branches. 
From the blood in them the fluids are secreted that fill 




Diagrammatic View of the Ear. 

i. Pavilion. 2. Meatus externus. 3. Membrana tympani. 4,5,6. Chain of Bones. 7. Cavity 
of tympanum. 8. Eustachian tube. 9. Meatus internus. 10. Vestibule. 11. Semicircular canals. 
12. Cochlea. 13. Stapedius muscle. 




Otoliths 



The Membranous Labyrinth. 

(Diagrammatic.) 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 55 

both labyrinths. And veins also are there to take away 
the surplus blood. 

Sounds come in through the auditory canal in 
waves, such as are made in water when a stone is thrown 
into it, and pass along the bones of the middle ear, 
through the oval window into the internal ear, where 
their vibrations pass through the fluids in the passages 
and touch the auditory nerve. 

The tiny branches of this nerve carry the exact 
impression of the sound to the brain, where the mind 
is. So, it is not the ear that hears; the ear is only ar* 
organ for the soul to use while it is in the body. 

To hear means to obey. 

When a child hears his parents' commands he 
should obey them. 

This is the way for a child to make the best possi- 
ble use of the organ of hearing, 

The eyes help in hearing. That is because we have 
learned how the lips should be placed to make a certain 
sound or to pronounce a certain word. 

If a near-sighted person wishes to hear more dis- 
tinctly, he puts on his eye-glasses; and persons who are 
entirely deaf can tell what another is saying if they have 
learned to understand the motions of the lips. 



56 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 



DIVINE TEACHINGS CONCERNING THE EAR. 

A. C. 4652. — At times, when spirits have spoken with 
me in the midst of the company of men, 
some of them have supposed, because their 
speech was heard so sonorously, that they 
would be heard also by those who were 
there present; but reply was made that it 
is not so, inasmuch as their speech flows 
into my ear by an internal way, and human 
speech by an external way. 

A. C. 4653. — The spirits who correspond to the hear- 
ing, or who constitute the province of the 
ear, are such as are in simple obedience, viz., 
who do not reason whether a thing be so, 
but who believe it to be so because it is 
said to be so by others; hence, they may be 
called obediences. 

They are of such a quality, because hear- 
ing is to speech as the passive is to the 
active, or as he who hears a person speak- 
ing, and acquiesces, and hence also in com- 
mon discourse, to be hearing any one is to 
be obedient, and to hearken to the voice is 
to obey. 

There are many differences of the spirits 
who correspond to the ear — that is, to its 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 57 

functions and offices; some have reference 
to each of its little organs — to the external 
ear, to the membrane thereof, which is called 
the drum of the ear, to the interior mem- 
branes called windows, to the hammer, the 
stirrup, the anvil, the cylinders, the cochlea; 
and some have reference to parts still more 
inward, even to those substantiated parts 
which are more proper to the spirit, and 
which, at length, are in the spirit,and at last 
are inmostly conjoined with those who per- 
tain to the internal sight, from whom they 
are distinguished by their not having so 
much discernment, but assenting to them 
as passive.. 

A. C. 1953. — The ear cannot know, still less perceive 
speech, * * * The ear only 

discerns the articulate sounds. 

A. C. 946. — Concerning the things in the human in- 
ternal ear, an entire book could be filled 
with the stupendous and unheard of things. 

A. C. 322. — Spirits have hearing so exquisite that 
the hearing of those in the body cannot be 
compared to it. 

A. C. 2072. — Interior hearing and obedience (are ex- 
pressed in the Word) by "the ear." 



58 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

A. C. 3869. — When the things that are heard penetrate 
to the interiors, they are changed into what 
is like sight, for the things which are heard 
are seen interiorly. 

A. C. 1460.— Cognitions * *- * in child- 

hood never come from within, but from the 
objects of the senses, especially from the 
hearing. 

A. C. 9311. — "To hear," in the Word, means, not only 
simply to hear, but also to receive in the 
memory, and to be instructed ; and also to 
receive in the understanding and to believe ; 
and also to receive in obedience and do. 

A. E. 14. — * * * There are two senses 
given to man which serve as means to 
receive the things by which the rational is 
formed, and also the things by which man 
is reformed, namely, the sense of sight and 
the sense of hearing ; the other senses are for 
other uses. The things which enter by the 
sense of sight, enter into his understanding 
and illustrate it. * * * But 

the things which enter through the sense of 
hearing, enter into the understanding, and, 
at the same time, into the will ; and, there- 
fore, by the hearing is signified perception 
and obedience. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 59 

The following Quotation shows how the impres- 
sions of sounds made in talking reach the mind: 

A. C. 3342. — All speech that is perceived with the ear, 
when it ascends toward the interiors, passes 
into ideas not unlike those of visual things,, 
and from these into intellectual ones, and 
thus there is effected a perception of the 
sense of the words. 

There is another Quotation showing that what is 
heard is seen in the mind: 

A. C. 4658. — To the interiors of the ear pertain those 
who have the sight of the interior hearing, 
and obey what its spirit there dictates, and 
who give apt expression to its dictates. 

A. C. 2542, — Ears, in the internal sense of the Word, sig- 
nify obedience ; from the cause also of 
the correspondence which is between hear- 
ing and obeying, which correspondence 
lies hid in the very expression to hear, and 
especially in the expression to hearken ; the 
origin of this correspondence is from 
the other life, where they who are obedient 
and dutiful pertain to the province of the 
ear ; yea, correspond to the hearing itself, 
which is an arcanum not yet known. 



6o LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 



EAR-RINGS. 

In several numbers of the Heavenly Doctrines 
mention is made of ornaments for the ears. 

In ancient times, very differently from now, people 
put on garments and ornaments to express their thoughts 
and affections. 

At the present time we wear clothing for covering, 
for warmth, and for what we consider adornment, with- 
out any thought of expressing our states of mind by it 
except in a very general way. 

But in ancient times, each article of clothing and 
each ornament was a sign of a certain state of the 
thoughts and affections of the wearer, and was worn to 
express that state. 

Inasmuch as the ear and the hearing meant obedi- 
ence, therefore an ornament worn in the ear meant the 
same thing. 

That is the reason why both men and women wore 
ear-rings in those early times. 

Concerning this we find the following in Arcana 
Ccelestia, 4551 : 

11 And the ear-rings which were in their ears." 
That hereby are signified things actual appears 
from the signification of ear-rings as being insignia 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 61 

representative of obedience, which is from this, that 
the ears signify obedience, and the things of obedience 
are things actual ; for to obey, involves to do in act 

Also in A. C. 3263, at the end it is written " That 
at Gideon's request every one shall give the ear-rings 
of his prey, for they had ear-rings of gold because they 
were Ishmaelites," — where ear-rings of gold signify 
those things which are of simple good." 

A. C. 10,402. — It is stated that an ear-ring is a repre- 
sentative token of obedience ; hence, to put 
it on denotes to obey. 



ON SOUND, AND HOW IT COMES TO THE EAR. 

"If you look at a large bell when it is struck, you 
can see a quivering or shaking in it. 

If you put your hand upon it, you can feel the 
quivering. You can see the same thing in the strings 
of a piano when they are struck, and in the strings of 
a violin as the bow is drawn over them. 

The wind makes the music in the ^olean harp in 
the window by shaking its strings. And when you 
speak or sing, the sound is made by the quivering of 
two flat cords in your throat. 



62 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

But when a bell is struck, how does the sound get 
to our ears ? The quivering, or vibration, as it is called, 
of the bell, makes a vibration in the air, and this vibra- 
tion is continued along through the air to the ears. 

The vibration can go through other things besides 
the air. It will go through something solid better than 
it will go through the air. Put your ear at the end of a 
long log, and let some one scratch with a pin at the 
other end, and you can hear it very plainly. But if you 
take away your ear from the log, you cannot hear il, for 
the vibration, or sound, cannot come to you so far 
through the air. 

The nearer you are to where the sound is made, 
the louder it is, and the farther the sound goes the 
fainter it is. It is said to die away as it goes; that is, 
the vibration becomes less and less, till after awhile it is 
all lost. 

It is like this : If you drop a stone into water, it 
makes little circular waves, one within another which 
spread out larger and larger till they cease, and the 
water again becomes still. It is just so with the waves 
or vibrations of sound in the air. 

I have told you how sound goes through the air, 
and through other things, but how is it that we hear 
sound when it comes to our ears ? 

This vibration does not go into the brain where 
the mind is; it only goes into the ear, and there it stops. 
How can the mind know anything about it ? 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 6j 

The vibration goes into the ear to a membrane 
called the drum, and shakes it, and this shakes a chain 
of little bones in the middle ear. The last of these 
bones is fastened to another little drum, and, of course, 
this is shaken. 

This drum covers an opening to some winding 
passages in bone. These passages are filled with a 
watery fluid. 

Now, the shaking of the second little drum makes 
this fluid shake. The nerve of hearing feels this shak- 
ing of the fluid, and tells the mind in the brain. 

See, now, how many different shakings there are 
for every sound you hear. 

First, the bell or whatever it is that makes the 
sound, shakes. Then there is a shaking of the air. 
This shakes the drum of the ear. Then the chain of 
bones is shaken. The farthest one of them shakes an- 
other drum, and this shakes the fluid in the bony pas- 
sages. 

All this takes place every time you hear a sound; 
and when you hear one sound after another coming 
very quickly, how the vibrations chase each other, as 
we may say, into the ear ! But they are not jumbled 
together. They do not overtake one another. Every 
vibration goes by itself; and so each sound is heard dis- 
tinct from the others, unless the vibrations come very 
fast indeed. Then they make one continued sound. 
Each puff of a locomotive, when it starts, is heard by 
itself. 



64 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

The vibration of one puff gets into the fluid in 
the labyrinth before the one that follows it, but as the 
locomotive goes on, the puffs get nearer and nearer 
together, and when it goes very fast, they are so near 
together that the vibrations, or waves, do not go sepa- 
rately into the ear; so they make a continued sound. 

The more of these vibrations that the ear can catch, 
the more distinct is the hearing. 

Some animals, that need to hear very well, have 
very large ears. 

Sometimes when we wish to hear more distinctly, we 
put up the hand to the side of the head. This gathers 
the waves of sound, and turns them into the ear. 

Those who are deaf sometimes have an ear-trumpet 
for the same purpose. 

Some animals can turn their ears so as to hear well 
from different directions. How quickly the horse pricks 
up his ears when he hears or sees something that he 
wants to know more about ; and then he can turn his 
ears backward when he wants to do so. 

It is in such timorous animals as the hare, the rab- 
bit and the deer, that we see the ears most movable. 

Their ears, too, are large, so they can hear very 
easily. You have learned how the eye is guarded. The 
ear is well guarded, also. Not its outer part, but it is 
the inner parts or passages where the hearing is really 
done that are so well guarded. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 65 

You have learned that they are filled with a fluid. 
The nerve of hearing has its fine delicate fibres in these 
passages. They feel the shaking of the fluid and send 
an impression of the motion up to the brain where the 
mind is. 

Now it is necessary that this part of the hearing 
apparatus should be well guarded ; it is for this reason 
that these passages are inclosed in the hardest bone in 
the body." — Hooker Childs Book of Nature. 

This borrowed account of the ear gives a very 
careful description of how we hear ; but, no more than 
the borrowed account of the eye, does it teach what is 
essential for us to know concerning the best and highest 
use of the organ. 

Although it admits that it is the mind that hears, it 
says no word about the use of hearing as bearing upon 
our preparation for life in the other world, when this is 
the most important part of its use. 

The organ of hearing, so wonderfully constructed, 
is given you that you may hear the things which are 
important for your eternal welfare, and that hearing, 
you may obey them. 

You are to obey, first, your parents, and next your 
teachers, who take the place of your parents in school 
— that you may be prepared to obey the Lord when you 
are grown up ; and you learn to obey Him because 
such obedience will lead you into His kingdom in the 
heavens, and thus into the utmost possible happiness. 



66 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

So you see that the proper use of the eye and of 
the ear will lead to the same happy result in the 
other world. 

The following pages give you some information 
concerning the ears of animals. The more carefully 
you study this subject, the more clearly you will see 
that the organ of hearing of each one is perfectly 
adapted to its needs as a creature having a distinct in- 
dividual life in this world only. 



THE EARS OF ANIMALS. 

"The organ of hearing is not so complicated in all 
classes of animals [as in man] and is found to be more 
and more simplified as we descend the series. 

In birds, the middle and internal ears are con- 
structed on the same plans as in the mammals, but the 
outer [or external] ear no longer exists, and the audi- 
tory canal at the surface of the head behind the eyes, is 
merely surrounded by a circle of peculiarly formed 
feathers. The bones of the middle ear are also less 
numerous, there being generally but one. 

In reptiles, the whole exterior ear disappears ; the 
auditory passage [or canal] is always wanting, and the 
tympanum, or drum of the ear becomes external. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 67 

In some toads, even the middle ear is also com- 
pletely wanting. The fluid of the vestibule is charged 
with salts of lime, which frequently give it a milky ap- 
pearance, and which, when examined by the microscope, 
are found to be composed of an infinite number of 
crystals. 

In fishes, the middle and external ears are both 
wanting ; and the organ of hearing is reduced to a mem- 
branous vestibule situated in the cavity of the skull, 
and surmounted by semi-circular canals, from one to 
three in number. The liquid of the vestibule contains 
chalky irregular forms [something like stones] called 
Otoliths, the use of which is doubtless to render the 
vibrations of sounds more distinct. 

In crabs, the organ of hearing is at the base of 
the large antennae. It is a bony chamber, closed by a 
membrane, in the interior of which is suspended a mem- 
branous sac filled with water. On this sac the auditory 
nerve is expanded. 

In the cuttle-fish the vestibule is a simple excava- 
tion of the cartilage of the head, containing a little 
membranous sac, in which the auditory nerve termin- 
ates. 

Finally, some insects, the grasshopper, for in- 
stance, have an auditory apparatus, not situated in the 
head, as with other animals, but in the legs ; and from 
this fact we may be allowed to suppose that if no organ 



68 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

of hearing has yet been found in most insects, it is be- 
cause it has been sought for in the head only. 

It appears that the part of the organ of hearing 
which is always present in all animals furnished with 
ears, is precisely that in which the auditory nerve ends. 
This, therefore, is the essential part of the organ 
of hearing. The other parts of the apparatus — the 
tympanum, the auditory passage and even the semi-cir- 
cular canals are merely to make the sound more dis- 
tinct. So, we may conclude that the sense of hearing 
is dull in animals where the organ of hearing is most 

simple: and that animals which have only a simple 
membranous sac, without tympanum and auditory canal, 
as the fishes, or without semi-circular canals, as the crabs, 
perceive sounds in a very imperfect manner." — Agassiz 
& Gould, Principles of Zoology. 



Tub Nose. 



Gen. ii. 7. — And the Lord God formed the man 
dust from the ground, and breathed into 
his nostrils the breath of lives. 

Ex. xv. 8. — And with the wind of Thy nostrils the 
waters were heaped together. 

II Sam. xxii. 9. — There went up a smoke out of His 
nose and fire out of His mouth devoured. 

II Kings xix. 28. — Because thou hast been moved 
against me, and thy confidence has come 
up into mine ears, therefore will I put 
my hook into thy nose, and my bridle 
in thy lips, and I will lead thee back by 
the way by which thou earnest. 










The Cartilages of the Nose. 



The Olfactory Nerve. 



Lamina 

crtLrosa ^^^ Gangl. spkeno- 

',enoid. y^tattn. 



%\ y N. VIDIANUS 




N. PETROS. 
SUPERF. MAJ. 



^W N. PETROS. PROF. 
N. PHARYNG. 
N. PALAT. DESCEND. 



Canal, 
nuso-yalat . / 



TURBINATED BONES AND CRIBRIFORM PLATE. 



The Nose. 



The nose consists of two parts — the external, or 
outside nose, and the internal, or inside, which is also 
called the nasal fossae. 

The different parts of the external nose have all 
been named, as well as the inside: there is the root, or 
bridge, which connects it with the forehead; then, there 
are the sides, the tip, the wings and the nostrils. 

The sides of the nose, slanting upward from the 
cheeks, are united along the top, and form the dorsum, 
which is the Latin name for the back. 

The partition that divides the nose into two pas- 
sages is made of cartilage in the front, or lower part, 
where you can take it between your fingers; farther 
back, under the bony part, it is made of bone. 

In the anatomies, this partition or septum is called 
the columna. 

The entire lower part of the frame-work of the 
nose is made of cartilage, as you can easily see by press- 
ing it a little with your fingers. You can find just 
where the bone of the nose ends and where the carti- 
lage begins. This cartilage is not all in one piece ;, 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 



there are four pieces of it that are bound to each other 
and to the bony part of the nose by a strong membrane. 

The internal nose, the nasal fossae, are two irregu- 
larly-shaped passages in the middle of the face. They 
open in front by the nostrils, and are called the anterior 
nares. The openings into the pharynx behind are called 
the posterior nares. These passages lie in the bones of 
the face. 

The nerve of smell, the olfactory nerve, comes 
down from the brain, and spreads out all over the sur- 
face of these passages, and upon the bony septum, but 
not upon the lower part of the internal nose that is 
made of cartilage. As this surface is very small, there- 
fore, in order to make more space for the olfactory 
nerves to spread out upon, there are three little scrolls 
of bone, one above another, lying along each wall. 

These little scrolls curve out into the nasal fossae 
opposite to each other, but with the bony septum be- 
tween. 

They are covered with the same kind of thick skin 
or membrane as the passages in which they lie, and 
their curved surfaces make a much larger space for the 
olfactory nerve. 

This membrane is continuous with the skin on the 
outside of the body, of which you will learn some inter- 
esting things when you come to study about the sense 
of touch. 

At the entrance of the nostrils, hairs are found 
growing all around each orifice. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 73 

They prevent very fine particles of dust from en- 
tering the nasal passages. 

The following is an extract from the work of a 
great anatomist upon the subject of these hairs : 

11 The use of the vibrissas [or hairs] becomes very 
evident in serious diseases, when in consequence of the 
hurried respiration, dry particles floating in the air become 
attached like a fine powder to them. 

The collection of the particles of dust around the 
nostrils often warns the physician of the serious nature 
of the disease." — Cruveilhier. 

We find upon reviewing what has been said about 
the nose, that its frame-work is composed of bone, car- 
tilage and membranes. 

Membranes are of very different texture and char- 
acter in different parts of the body, depending upon the 
uses that they have to perform. 

You have already learned a little about the thick 
one that lines the nasal cavities, called the pituitary 
membrane. This is different from the one that binds 
the four pieces of cartilage together which form the 
lower part of the nose. It is made of fibres that cross 
each other so as to make a kind of web or tissue, so it 
is called fibrous tissue. 

Upon the frame-work of the nose muscles are 
spread out, and various kinds of pipes or tubes ramify 



74 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

through its substance in every direction. Some of them 
are too small to be seen without a microscope, and some 
are quite large, though generally hidden from view by 
the skin and muscles. 

There are arteries bringing red blood from the 
heart to nourish all the parts of the nose, and some* 
times it seems as if it liked to stay there as well as in 
the cheeks, for we frequently see quite red noses. 

Then, there are veins to take away the surplus 
blood to the heart. 

There are nerves (which are tiny pipes) that come 
down from the brain, and give the power of feeling 
and the very slight power that the nose has of moving, 
and they also bring the finest kind of blood, called the 
animal spirit. 

Then there is another set of pipes, called the lym- 
phatics, that gather up the surplus of the finest blood 
and carefully carry it back into the circulation, so that 
none of it may be wasted. 

The cartilage of the lower part of the nose is very 
useful in rendering it flexible, in enabling it to move with 
the muscles of the cheeks and lips, so that the mind can 
use it as a means of expressing its feelings. 

This would be impossible if the nose were all one 
solid piece of bone down to the very tip. 

The cartilage has another use — being quite soft, it 
will yield to the force of a blow and recover its former 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 75 

shape very soon, when if it were made of bone, it might 
be broken quite flat. 

In the skull, just above the nose, is a curious place 
in the bone where it is pierced full of tiny holes, and 
for this reason, is called the cribriform plate. You could 
very nearly cover the cribriform plate with the end of 
your forefinger. A little sharp point, or projection of 
flat bone rises up from the middle of this plate; its 
shape is very much like a cock's comb, for which reason 
it has received this name in Latin; it is the crista galli. 

Two little lobes of the brain, called the olfactory 
lobes, lie one on each side of the crista galli, just over 
the cribriform plate, but they do not stop up the little 
holes. 

Fine threads of nerves start out from these olfac- 
tory bulbs, and pass through the small holes, leaving 
space however for the passage of other things down 
from the brain. 

These tiny nerves are the only ones that give the 
sense of smell. They are fine, delicate pipes, and 
through them flows down some of the finest blood to 
nourish the delicate, internal membrane of the nose, ia 
which they terminate and spread out. 

So you see that they have two uses, first to con- 
vey the impression or perception of odors up to the 
brain so that the mind may perceive them, and second, 
to bring down fine pure blood from the brain — where it 
is made — to the nose. 



76 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

The particles of any perfume or odor enter the 
nose and touch these delicate nerves, so you can see that 
smelling is one kind of sense of touch. 

The nose is an extremely useful organ. If you 
have never learned anything about it before, you will be 
surprised to find what a variety of uses it has, without 
counting that of beautifying the face, for even the 
ugliest possible nose makes the face look better than no 
nose at all. It has a great number of uses. Good odors 
and perfumes pass into the head through the nose and 
go up to the brain where they help make the animal 
spirit, which contains the very life of all the blood in the 
body. 

It is proverbial that cooks who constantly inhale 
the odors and aromas of the food that they prepare for 
the table, eat less than other persons, and are generally 
very fat and rosy. 

When bad odors touch the olfactory nerves, they 
cause a general recoil of every tiny branch and thread 
of them, and an effort to shut themselves up and keep 
out such unwelcome intruders. Almost involuntarily 
the lungs cease to draw in the air that is loaded with 
such impurity, and if it be from some visible object, the 
nose turns away as far as possible. 

It seems aware that offensive odors contain poisons 
injurious to the health of the body. So the nose is 
planted there on the heights of the face, like a faithful 
sentinel, to give warning of danger. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 77 

Then it affords a passage for the air on its way to 
the lungs. This enables us to breathe without letting the 
air pass through the mouth, which is not a good way of 
breathing. 

It acts as a strainer of the air; first the hairs or 
vibrissas take a good deal of dust, and then the air, in 
going through the curving passages, flows, not in a 

straight line, but in a spiral, so that the fine specks of 
powdery dust that get past the vibrissas are brought in 
contact with the damp walls of the passages that lead 
down to the lungs. By and by, when you have learned 
the structure of the lungs and of the pipe that leads to 
them, you will understand how important it is that the 
air going down into them should be as pure as possible. 

As before stated, the air spins round and round in 
passing through the nasal passages, and so every part 
of it comes in contact with the moist walls again and 
again, and this powdery dust sticks to them, and cannot 
get any farther. 

The nasal passages are not only damp, but they are 
warm. In winter, when the air is too cold to be good 
for the lungs, it spins round through these passages,, 
and has the chill taken off by coming in contact with 
the walls. 

In every season of the year it is important to 
breathe through the nose. 

In winter, to warm the air ; in summer, to strain it 
of dust, as well as to take in good odors ; in spring, that 



78 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

the perfume of flowers, and in autumn, that the aroma 
of fruits may go through it up to the brain. 

The nose helps in talking. You have heard per- 
sons talk with a peculiar sound that is called a nasal 
twang ? This means that they are supposed to talk too 
much through the nose, but the exact contrary of this is 
true, which you can prove by talking while you hold the 
nose shut tight between the thumb and finger. 

So, the nose is useful in helping to produce clear, 
pleasant sounds of the voice in speaking. 

Then, the nasal passages are used by the brain as 
a highway to send off the secretions of various kinds 
that would clog it, and prevent the satisfactory per- 
formance of its work. 

These secretions pass down through the cribriform 
plate into the nasal fossae. Their downward passage is 
often facilitated by sneezing. 

You will find a still more extended account of the 
nose and its uses in Swedenborg's "Animal Kingdom," 
which, it is hoped, you will have the privilege of reading 
and studying when you are older. 

It will be useful for you to have a summary, or a 
short review, of the uses of the nose which you have 
just learned, so as to readily commit them to memory. 

1st. — To perceive good odors and send them up to 
the brain to nourish it. 

2d. — To warn us of bad odors. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 79 

3d. — To afford passage for the air on its way to 
the lungs. 

4th. — To strain the air from dust. 

5th. — To warm the air in winter before it gets to 
the lungs. 

6th. — To help in talking. 

7th. — To afford passage for the secretions sent 
away by the brain. 



DIVINE TEACHINGS CONCERNING THE NOSE. 

A. C. 96. — That it is said that Jehovah God inspired 
through the nostrils, this is as follows: an- 
ciently and in the Word, by nostrils was un- 

Klb derstood whatever was grateful from its odor, 

which signifies perception. 

A. C. 3103. — The nose signifies the life of good from 
respiration which is there. 

A. C. 8286. — The wind from the nostrils of Jehovah sig- 
nifies life from the Divine, which is the life 
of heaven. 

A. C. 4624. — They who correspond to the nostrils in 
the Grand Man excel in perception. 



80 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

A. C. 4627. — They who have reference to the interiors 
of the nostrils are in a more perfect state 
as to perception than those who have refer- 
ence to the exterior. 

A. C. 925. — That an odor signifies what is grateful and 
acceptable, and thus that odor in the Jewish 
Church was also representative of what is 
grateful, and is attributed to Jehovah or the 
Lord, is because the good of charity and the 
truth of faith from charity corresponds to de- 
ful and sweet odors. That this correspon- 
dence is, and what it is, may appear from the 
spheres in the heaven of spirits and angels. 
There, there are spheres of love and faith 
which are manifestly perceived. * * 
To these spheres, the spheres of odors in the 
world correspond, as is evident from this, 
that the spheres of love and faith, when- 
soever it is well pleasing unto the Lord, are 
manifestly changed in the world of spirits 
into spheres of sweet and delightful odors, 
and are manifestly perceived. 

A. C. 1514. — Spheres are also rendered sensible by 
odors, which spirits feel much more ex- 
quisitely than men; for, what is wonderful, 
odors correspond with spheres. They who 
have been accustomed to play the hypo- 
crite and to impose on others by false pre- 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 81 

tences, and have thereby contracted a nature 
accordingly, when their sphere is changed 
into an odor, it is like the stench of vomiting. 
Such as have studied the art of eloquence,, 
with the end that all things be for the 
admiration of themselves, when their 
sphere is changed into an odoriferous 
one, it is like the smell of burnt bread. * * 
They who have lived in violent hatred, 
revenge and cruelty, their sphere, when 
changed into odors, has the stench of a carcass. 
The stench of mice exhales from those 
who had been in sordid avarice. The stench 
of the house lice from those who persecute 
the innocent. 

A. C. 4624. — As to the correspondence of the sense of 
smelling and thence of the nostrils with the 
Grand Man, they who are in common per- 
ception pertain to that province, so that they 
may be called perceptions ; to them corre- 
sponds the smell, consequently its organ. 
Hence, also, it is that to smell, to scent, to 
be quick-scented and also the nostrils are 
predicated in common discourse of those 
who, in matters of difficult investigation, 
come nearest the point in question and like- 
wise who perceive ; for the interior things 
of the expressions of man's speech derive 
much from correspondence with the Grand 



82 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

Man, because man, as to his spirit is in 
society with spirits, and as to his body, 
with men. 

There are many more teachings in the Heavenly 
Doctrines about the nose and the nostrils and what they 
signify. 

These you will wish to read, when you are older, 
in connection with a more extended study of the nose, 
for these Lessons are only the beginning of knowledge 
concerning it. 

But the teachings that are quoted here, if care- 
fully studied, will enable you to think properly about 
the nose — that is, to think what its spiritual, or internal, 
meaning is, and thus fill your mind with heavenly 
thoughts concerning it. 

In the Arcana Ccelestia, n. 2995, is some instruc- 
tion about people who lived on this earth long ago, 
who were in the habit of thinking in this way con- 
cerning everything in the world. 

" The men of the Most Ancient Church, inasmuch 
as in single the things of nature they saw somewhat spir- 
itual and celestial, so that natural things served them 
only as objects of thinking concerning things spiritual 
and celestial, were enabled thereby to discourse with 
angels, and to be with them in the kingdom of the Lord, 
which is in the heavens, at the same time that they 
were in His kingdom on earth, or in the Church: thus, 
natural things with them were conjoined with spiritual 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 83 

things, and corresponded to them in all respects. But 
the case was otherwise after those times when evil and 
falsity began to prevail, or when, after the golden age, 
the iron one began." 

Thus, the people of the golden age thought spirit- 
ually concerning every earthly or natural object; this is 
what all the angels do, and this is what the people of 
the Lord's New Church must learn to do if they desire 
to have their thoughts and feelings in harmony with 
those of the inhabitants of heaven. 

Earthly, or natural and material things, thus regard- 
ed and studied, lead the mind up to the Lord Himself, 
in whom should centre all the thought and affection of 
human beings,' for He is the Source of all knowledge 
of all kinds, and of all good loves. 



ORNAMENTS FOR THE NOSE. 

In the Part on the Ear, you had some teaching 
about the wearing of ear-rings in ancient times, and you 
learned that people wore them as a sign of a state of 
obedience to the Lord ; which was a good state. 

They were worn by whole nations that were of an 
obedient character, as you were taught by a quotation 
from Arcana Ccelestia, n. 3263, on this subject. 



84 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

There were states of obedience with them from 
different causes, which differences the ancients expressed 
by wearing rings elsewhere than in the ears. 

They wore them between the eyes, though they 
called them by the same name as that given to the ear- 
rings. 

They were attached to the root, or bridge, of the 
nose, where it joins the forehead. 

In the story of Isaac and Rebecca, in the Word, 
Gen. xxiv. 47, it says : "And I asked her, and said, 
Whose daughter art thou? And she said, The daugh- 
ter of Bethuel, the son of Nahor, whom Milach bare 
unto him, and I set an ornament on her nose, and brace- 
lets on her hands." 

The explanation of this, in 3103 of the Arcana 
Ccelestia, all the girls who study these Lessons will have 
no difficulty in learning by heart. 

11 And the man took an ornament of gold." 

That hereby is signified Divine Good, appears 
from the signification of an ornament of gold, that itis 
good ; and whereas the subject here treated of in 
the internal sense is concerning the Lord, therefore it 
is Divine Good. 

In ancient times, when worship in churches was 
representative, and they knew what it signified, 
when marriages were entered into, it was customary to 
give the bride an ornament of gold, and bracelets, be- 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 85 

cause the Church was represented by the bride, its good 
by the ornament of gold, and the truth by bracelets; and 
because it was known that conjugial love, which is of 
the bride and the wife, descended from the mar- 
riage of Divine Good and Divine Truth of the Lord. 

The ornament of gold was placed on the nose, as 
appears also from what follows, where it is said that he 
set the ornament of gold upon her nose, verse 47, 
because the nose signified the life of good from the 
respiration which is there, which in the internal sense is 
life, and likewise from odor, which is the grateful of 
love, of which good is." 

That an ornament of gold was a badge of marriage 
as to good, appears also from other passages in the 
Word, as in Ezekiel: " I adorned thee also with orna- 
ments, and I gave bracelets upon thine hands and a neck- 
lace upon thy neck, and I gave an ornament upon thy 
nose," Chap. XVI. 11. 12. Speaking of the Ancient 
Church, which is here Jerusalem, which is described 
as a bride, to whom were given bracelets, a necklace and 
an ornament for the nose ; the bracelets on the hands 
were a badge representative of truth, and the ornament 
on the nose was a badge representative of good. 

So in Isaiah: " Because the daughters of Zion extol 
themselves, the Lord hath made bald the crown of their 
heads, and will take away the rings and the ornaments 
of the nose, the changeable suits of apparel and the 
mantles." (Chap. iii. 16, 17, 21, 22.) " The daughters 



86 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

of Zion who extol themselves, for the affections of evil 
within the Church. See n. 2362, 3024.) The rings 
and the ornaments of the nose, which shall be taken 
away, denote good, and its badges ; the changeable suits 
of apparel and the mantles, denote truth and its badges. 

So, in Hosea: " I will visit upon her the days of 
Baalim to whom she hath burned incense, and hath put 
on her nose ornament, and hath gone after her lovers " 
(ii. 13), speaking of the Church perverted, and of a 
new one after it, where nose ornament also for a 
badge of the good of the Church. 

When those ornaments were fitted into the ears, 
they signified, also, good, but good in act; and, in the 
opposite sense, evil in act. 

A. C. 4551. — As to the ear-rings, they were of two 
sorts; the one kind was applied above the 
nose to the forehead, and the other to the 
ears ; the former were badges representative 
of good, and are called monilia (ornaments 
of the nose); but the latter were badges 
representative of obedience, and are ear- 
rings ; but in the original tongue they are 
expressed by the same term. 



' It is difficult for us to imagine what a lovely state 
of things it was when all the people put on garments 
and ornaments to express their affections. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. St 

It is also difficult for such a state of things to exist 
at the present time, because we have so many thoughts 
and affections that we do not wish others to see the 
least sign of, for they would be a discredit to us if 
known. 

It was different with the people of that pleasant 
and beautiful time. They had no affections save of love 
and obedience to the Lord, and of love to the neigh- 
bor, and their thoughts were all in agreement with these 
loves. To believe a thing in the heart, and express, 
exactly its opposite by the face and speech, as is often 
done now, would have been horrible to these truth- 
loving people, who were so good that they could dis- 
course with the angels. 

As all their thoughts and affections were so delight- 
ful, they loved to express them in all possible ways, for 
the sake of increasing the delight of those around 
them ; so they put on the outward signs of their happy 
internal state, and wore them just as naturally as your 
lips wear smiles, and your eyes show a sparkling light 
when you are happy. 

But though we are so far from that wonderful state: 
of the people of ancient times, we can, at least, turns 
our faces towards it, and begin to approach it by learn- 
ing to be obedient. 

It was by obedience to the commands of the Lord 
that they became so good and so happy. 



SS LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

It was by disobedience to His commands that their 
descendants became so bad and so unhappy. 

Since the happy childhood of the human race, in 
the golden age, there has been a long, dreary time of 
wretchedness and misery. 

But now, that the Lord has come in the Heavenly 
Doctrines of His New Church, all may hope, by obey- 
ing them, to come into a better and still better state. 

In fact, when all the people have learned the lesson 
•of loving obedience to Him, it will bring a state of 
happiness greater than ever was known before since 
the world was created. 

" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God from thy whole 
heart, and from thy whole soul, and from all thy 
forces; thou shalt tie those words for a sign upon thy 
hand, and let them be for frontlets between thine eyes!' 
(Deut. vi. 4, 5, 8.) 



NOSES OF' ANIMALS. 

Some animals make a funny use of their noses. 
They dig with them to get at food that grows, or is 
buried, in the earth. 

There is an allusion to this in a poem for children, 
by Mary Howitt, called "The Migration of the Gray 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 89 

Squirrels." The squirrels had laid up their winter store 
of nuts and acorns; 

11 Then did the hungry, wild swine come, 
And with thievish snout dug up 
Their buried treasures, and left them not 
So much as an acorn cup." 

The elephant's trunk is an immensely prolonged 
nose. The tapirs have very long noses, which they use 
very much as do the swine. 

The following is an account of the nose, taken 
from the work of a great naturalist. It will teach you 
something more about noses. It is a little more diffi- 
cult to understand than the borrowed accounts of the 
other organs, but by careful attention to your teacher s 
explanations it will become easy : 

"The organ of smell is the nose. Throughout the 
series of vertebrates it makes a part of the face, and in 
man, by reason of its prominent form, it becomes one 
of the most conspicuous features of his countenance ; 
in other mammals the nose loses its prominency, and 
the nostrils no longer open downwards, but forwards. 

In birds the position of the nostrils is a little dif- 
ferent ; they open farther back and higher, at the origin 
of the beak. 

The nostrils are usually two in number. Some 
fishes have four. They are similar openings, separated 
by a partition upon the middle line of the body. 



90 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

In man and the mammals the outer walls of the 
nose are composed of cartilage ; but internally the 
nostrils communicate with bony cavities in the bones of 
the face and forehead. These cavities are lined by a 
thick membrane, the pituitary membrane, on which are 
expanded the nerves of smell, namely the olfactory 
nerves. 

The process of smelling is as follows : Odors 
are particles of extreme delicacy which escape from 
very many bodies, and are diffused through the air. 
These particles excite [touch] the nerves of smell, 
which transmit the impressions made on them to the 
brain. 

To facilitate the perception of odors, the nostrils 
are placed in the course of the respiratory passages, so 
that all the odors which are diffused in the air inspired, 
pass over the pituitary membrane. 

The acuteness of the sense of smell depends on 
the extent to which the membrane is developed. Man 
is not so well endowed in this respect as many 
animals which have the internal surface of the nostrils 
extremely complicated, as it is especially among the 
beasts of prey. 

The sense of smell in reptiles is less delicate than 
in mammals. The pituitary membrane, also, is less 
developed. 

Fishes, also, are still less favored in this respect. 
As they perceive odors through the medium of the 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 91 

water, we should anticipate that the structure of their 
noses would be different from that of animals which 
breathe the air. Their nostrils are mere superficial 
pouches, lined with a membrane gathered into folds 
which generally radiate from a centre, but are sometimes 
-arranged in parallel ridges on each side of a central band. 
As the perfection of smell depends on the amount 
of surface exposed, it follows that those fishes which 
have these folds most multiplied are also those in which 
this sense is most acute. 

No special apparatus for smell has yet been found 
in invertebrates. And yet there can be no doubt that 
insects, crabs and some mollusks perceive odors, since 
they are attracted from a long distance by the odor of 
-objects. Some of these animals may be deceived by odors 
similar to those of their prey; which clearly shows that 
they are led to it by this sense. The carrion fly will 
deposit its eggs on plants which have the smell of 
tainted fish." — Agassiz & Gould, Principals of Zoology. 



The Tongue. 



Ps. xxxix. 2. — I said I will guard my ways from 
sinning with my tongue. 

Ps. cxix. 172. — My tongue shall proclaim Thy Word, 
for all Thy commandments are justice. 

Isa. xxxv. 6. — Then shall leap as a hart the lame, 
and shall sing the tongue of the dumb. 

Ps. lxvi. 17. — Unto Him with my mouth I cried, 
and He was extolled under my tongue. 

Ps. xii. 4. — The Lord doth cut off all lips of flat- 
terers, the tongue speaking great things. 




Canine, 
iublingu 



The Salivary Glands and some ok the Muscles ok the Tongue. 



The Tongue. 



The tongue lies in the hollow chamber that fits it 
perfectly, and yet gives it room to move, for the lower 
jaw, which forms the lower part of this chamber, swings 
on a hinge, and lets the jaw drop whenever the tongue 
presses downward. The lower jaw is subordinate to 
the tongue, as well as all the other parts around it and 
near it. Among these are the salivary glands, which 
are soft bodies that have branches of arteries all around 
and through them, bringing blood from the heart. 
They are so formed as to have the power to draw out 
or secrete a fluid from the blood, called saliva, that flows 
down through the pipes or ducts to the mouth. 

It flows down whenever the tongue sucks, and 
this it does whenever there is any need of saliva 
to soften the food, or to moisten the mouth and throat. 



THE TONGUE. 

There are three principal pairs of salivary glands. 

The Parotid, lying on the cheek, around the bottom 
of each ear. 



96 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

The Submaxillary , lying under each lower jaw. 

The Sublingual, lying under the tongue. 

There are many others besides. 

When the body is in health, there is no delay in the 
obedience that these parts yield to the tongue, which 
may be compared to the chief ruler of an immense so- 
ciety in Heaven, This ruler, receiving his wisdom from 
the Lord, disposes, ordains and commands in obedience 
to the dictates of that wisdom. The angels of the in- 
ferior societies experience intense delight in working 
under the control of such a ruler. 

Although the tongue can change its shape a great 
deal yet its general shape is described in the Anatomies 
as something like a pyramid. It has therefore extremi- 
ties, sides and edges. 

The free extremity is called the tip, or point, or apex, 
and the opposite extremity, lying in the back part 
of the mouth, is called the base. This part of the 
tongue is bound down and made fast by muscular bands, 
passing from it to various points in the throat. 

The upper side of the tongue is called the back, also 
the dorsum (which is the Latin name for the back). 

The tongue is divided into two lateral halves by a 
shallow depressed line running its whole length, called 
the median line. The nerves of the tongue do not cross 
this line from one side to the other. This is proved by 




The Ui-per Surface of the Tongue. 





Pap. fungiform? Pap. filiform 
of Children 



Tap. filiform. Pap. filiform: 

of Adults 




filiform^ «i^ 

Pap circumvallcila 

The Papilla of the Tongue. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 97 

the fact that one side of the tongue may be paralyzed 
and thus incapable of moving, or tasting, or feeling, 
while the other side is perfectly well. 

The edges of the tongue are the distinct lines where 
the smooth surface of the under side meets the rougher 
surface of the dorsum. 

What makes this roughness that you can so plainly 
see ? It is made by tiny bodies like little tongues, 
called papillae, lying thick and crowded on its upper 
surface. 

Though they are called little tongues, it does not 
mean that they are of the same shape as the large 
tongue. 

Concerning this Swedenborg says in the Animal 
Kingdom — No. 34, Note G. 

" Similitude in mere shape is of no consequence, so 
long as there be corpuscles that perform a similar use. 
The same thing obtains in all the other members and 
organs ; as in the eyes where the globular parts in the 
vitreous humor are so many little eyes — a fact which is 
best seen in the eyes of the bee and the fly. In the 
lungs, the least vesicles are so many little lungs, etc." 

There are three different kinds of papillae on the 
tongue : 

Those of the first class, called the mushroom papillae, 
scattered and grouped around its edges and over its 



98 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

surface, are the organs that take the first taste of the 
nutrient essences of the food, imbibe them with their 
little mouths and transmit them through continuous 
ducts and channels immediately into the blood. 

The papillae or glands of the second class, called the 
half-lentil shaped glands, have the same use of absorb- 
ing and sucking up the finest essences of the food as 
the first class. 

Both kinds have their surfaces perforated with tiny 
holes like the top of a pepper-box, or the nozzle of a 
watering pot. It is through these openings, which are 
the entrances of tiny passages or pipes, that the delicate 
food passes into the blood. This delicate food is of 
two kinds, as is proved by the following from No. 42, 
and accompanying note Z, of the Animal Kingdom. 
" Nature appears to have planted on the tongue glan- 
dular papillae, or recipient and absorbent organs of two 
kinds in order that the purest and most simple habitus, 
or spirituous dews, may be sipped by these of the 
second kind ; the grosser by those of the first kind." 

" These glandular forms then, are not for excreting 
saliva, but for absorbing it, and juices seethed and 
dissolved in it. Thus the tongue — the feeder and 
keeper of the entrance of the stomach and the viscera 
of the body, not merely prepares the table, but also 
takes the the first tastes of the viands, and begins the 
feast." 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 99 

The minute particles of these viands or delicate 
essences and aromas of the food must be clothed with 
the finest saliva, so that they can pass through the tiny- 
tubes into the veins and arteries. For the two kinds 
of glandular papillae which absorb it, send it away in 
two directions — through the veins into the blood, and 
through the invisible pipes of the inside coat or lining 
of the arteries, up into the brain. 

That it goes into the veins is proved by several 
passages in the Animal Kingdom, of which one is found 
in No. 72 and accompanying note N: 

" Sensation itself assures us that when pleasant, rich 
and spirituous fluids are kept in the mouth, they vanish 
away entirely, without a drop passing into the aeso- 
phagus: A supply is, in fact, continually required and 
eagerly demanded by the numberless ramifications of 
the jugular veins which redden the fauces. Moreover, 
the cranial or carotid blood is constantly deprived of 
its serum in the numerous salivary glands ; of its nobler 
essences in the sensoria of sight, hearing, smell and 
taste, and of its very spirits in the cerebrum and cere- 
bellum ; hence, arid, slow, hungry and thirsty in the 
veins, it burns to be recruited by the fresh and first-born 
chyle of the mouth." 

"From these causes there arise in all the veins, in the 
branches of the jugulars particularly, a thirst and desire 
of imbibing the liquids and juices expressed from the 






ioo LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

food, and thus of reabsorbing, and, as it were, of rumi- 
nating their saliva." 

The papillae of the third class are the true organs 
of taste. They are the most numerous of all, and have 
several names, probably because they are capable of 
taking different shapes according to the character and 
quality of the particles of food that touch them. Some 
anatomists call them cone-shaped, others pyramidal and 
villous; this last name is because they are so numerous 
and lie so close together that they look like the pile of 
velvet. 

Each tiny papillae has a minute loop of a nerve ex- 
tending spirally into it. Through these nerves the im- 
pression flies up to the brain that causes the sensation 
of taste. 

In fact, there are nerves coming down to the tongue 
from three distinct regions of the brain — from the cere- 
brum, the cerebellum and medulla oblongata or begin- 
ning of the spinal cord in the brain. Each set of nerves 
has its own separate use to perform in the tongue's 
threefold function of motion, feeling and taste. 

The nerves of taste are most numerous and most 
sensative on its tip, where the food is first received, for 
it is just there that the decision must be made to retain 
it, or to reject it. 

There are three membranes or coverings spread out 
over the thick substance of the tongfue. The outside 

o 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 101 

one has little pouches or pockets to admit and cover 
the papillae, very much as a glove admits and covers 
the fingers. 

Under this outside covering is the second or middle 
membrane that does not cover the papillae at all. on 
the contrary, the papillae pierce it and pass through it. 
When taken off and held up to the light, it looks like a 
sieve, being full of tiny holes, through which the pa- 
pillae pass; one anatomist quoted by Swedenborg, calls 
it "a beautiful network " 

The third, or internal membrane, lying under the 
first and second, forms the foundation, so to speak, 
of the papillae, for they arise from it. This membrane 
is composed of numerous threads of nerves interwoven 
so closely as to make a kind of web; from it the tiny 
loops of nerves pass up into the papillae. 

Under these three coverings lie bands of muscles of 
two general kinds: 

1. External muscles, or those that pass from the 
tongue to points outside of it. 

2. Internal muscles, or those that form the substance 
of the tongue, and do not pass out of it. 



Joz LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

EXTERNAL MUSCLES. 

There are four pairs of external muscles, and they 
fasten the tongue to several places, chiefly to a bone in 
the throat called the hyoid bone, that is curved to look 
something like a horseshoe. 

Some of these muscles go to the two tips of the hyoid 
bone, called the horns, some to its sides and others to 
its base. You can feel this bone in the throat by press- 
ing hard on the muscles just under the lower jaw. 

One pair passes into the tongue from the lower jaw 
where it is attached just under the chin. A side view 
of each muscle of this pair makes it look fan-shaped, as 
its fibres ray or spread out in the tongue very much like 
the ribs of an open fan. 

These four pairs of external muscles take their names 
from a combination of the Latin or Greek names of the 
points or parts to which they are attached. 

If you learn carefully the following list of words, you 
will have no difficulty with the names of the muscles 
and of their attachments: 

Os hyoides — hyoid bone. 

Geneion—X\iQ. chin. 

Omos — the shoulder. 




The Muscles of the Tongue. 




Muscles of the Neck, showing the Hyoid Muscles. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 103 

Sternum — the breast-bone. 

Glossus — the tongue. 

Mylos — a mill, the lower jaw. 

As the lower jaw forms an important part of the mill 
in the mouth where the food is crushed, the word mylos 
is used to mean the lower jaw. 

There are two sharp bones projecting downwards 
from the skull, one on each side of the mouth, behind. 
These sharp bones are called the styloid processes. 
Muscles passing out from the tongue are attached to 
them. 

Some of these names are changed a little when com- 
bined, but so little that you can easily tell what they 
mean. 

The mylo-glossi muscles pass from the lower jaw to 
the tongue. 

The stylo-glossi muscles pass from the styloid pro- 
cesses to the tongue. 

The hyo-glossi muscles pass from the hyoid bone to 
the tongue. 

The genio-glossi muscles pass from the chin to the 
tongue. 

There are five more pairs of muscles connected with 
the tongue. Of these, Winslow, a great anatomist 
quoted by Swedenborg, says: "The muscles that move 



104 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

the hyoid bone belong likewise to the tongue, and are 
the principal directors of its motions." 

Like the muscles previously mentioned, their names 
are a combination of the names of the points to which 
they are attached. They are the 

Mylo-hyoidei which pass from the lower jaw to the 
hyoid bone. 

Genio-hyoidei which pass from the chin to the hyoid 
bone. 

Stylo-hyoidei which pass from the styloid processes 
to the hyoid bone. 

Omo-hyoidei which pass from the shoulder to the hy- 
oid bone. 

Sterno-hyoidei which pass from the sternum to the hy- 
oid bone. 

Besides these muscles there are cords called li^a- 
ments that fix the tongue in the mouth. The principal 
one, called the fraenum or bridle, is in plain sight under 
the tongue. Right in the line of it are the openings of 
the ducts coming from the maxillary glands. Some- 
times, upon suddenly lifting the tongue, you can see 
the saliva spurt out of these openings. 

When this ligament is too short, and holds the tongue 
down, a person is said to be tongue-tied. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 105 

INTERNAL MUSCLES. 

Winslow says that "the internal muscles of the tongue, 
or rather the fleshy or muscular fibres of which the 
mass of the tongue is composed, and which do not pass 
out of it, are of three kinds — longitudinal, transverse and 
vertical. * * * All these fibres are inter- 

woven with each other — so as to look like the threads 
in a braid, or the bands in basket work — They termi- 
nate about either the borders, the base or the apex of 
the tongue, without passing beyond its substance. 



BLOOD-VESSELS; 

ARTERIES AND VEINS. 

"The principal blood-vessels of the tongue are those 
that appear so plainly on its lower surface on each side 
of the fraenum. They are four; — an artery and a vein 
on each side, named the sublingual or ranine veins and 
arteries. 

The veins lie next to the fraenum, and the arteries 
on the other side of the veins. 

Winslow, as quoted in the Animal Kingdom N. 27. 

These veins convey the blood of the tongue into the 
jugular veins, through which it descends toward the 
heart. 



io6 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

The ranine arteries are branches of a branch of the 
carotid artery through which the blood flows up to the 
tongue from the heart. 

The heart, by contracting, forces the blood out into 
its great pipe or artery, called the aorta. 

Through the branches of the great aorta, which 
divide like the branches of a tree, until they become 
very tiny pipes indeed, the blood flows to the very 
extremities. 

But, if the contractions of the heart were the only 
influence at work, the blood would never reach its 
destination. 

Each organ of the body invites and attracts it with 
just as much force as that exerted by the heart to send 
it out. Between these two forces the parts the most 
distant from the heart receive a proper supply of blood. 
Indeed, the smaller the pipes, the faster it flows. 

As these two forces are equal, they are said to be in 
equation, and this equation is constantly maintained 
while the body is in a state of health. But it is 
frequently destroyed by wrong ways of living, and then 
the body is sick. For instance, it is a very common 
thing for more blood to go to the brain than is called 
for or needed. It floods the reservoirs there, and not 
infrequently bursts the pipes. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 107 

But of this you will learn more whan you study the 
interior organs of the body. 

The more extensive and manifold the use of any 
organ, the better the blood it requires. As the tongue 
''performs a greater variety of uses than any other 
member of the organic body," you can easily judge of 
the quality of the blood that flows into it to meet this 
demand. 

This blood expends itself in nourishing the various 
parts of which the tongue is composed. It supplies 
material for new tissues to take the place of those that 
may be worn out, for this wearing out process is con- 
stantly going on. 

It brings particles of fat, that, deposited along the 
the course of the arteries, form a reserve of nourish- 
ment, and also serve to oil the tissues that come 
in constant contact with each other when the tongue is 
in motion. 

This blood, thus drained of its best and richest stores, 
passes through the pipes called capillaries, so small as 
to be invisible, into the tiny veins. 

The veins receive it along with all the nourishment 
that they can possibly suck in, among which, as before 
mentioned, are some of the best essences and aromas 
of the food that is crushed up in the mouth. 



io8 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 



USES OF TONGUE. 

It is interesting to notice what a variety of shapes 
the tongue can take. 

By pushing it out you can make its tip very pointed 
and small; then by pressing the teeth upon it the point- 
ed tip disappears, it looks rounded and blunt, while the 
entire tongue seems quite flat. 

In fact, it takes a different shape for every use it has 
to perform, and, as already mentioned, it has a greater 
variety of uses "than any other member of the organic 
body." 

All its particular uses may be classed under three 
general classes, as follows: 

First — Receiving the food: — Upon this subject we find 
the following in the Animal Kingdom, No 34. 

" The primary, proper and natural use of the tongue 
consists in sucking, sipping, eating and drinking, or, to 
speak more plainly, in receiving food for the nutrition 
of the body and the blood, in working this food about 
and forming it into a ball, and in rolling the ball into 
the aesophagus and swallowing it." 

The above shows you that the general use of re- 
ceiving the food is made up of a great variety of opera- 
tions, namely — sucking, sipping, eating, drinking, work- 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 109 

ing the food about, forming it into a ball, rolling the 
ball down and swallowing it. 

The second use of the tongue consists in tasting : 

" A second proper office of the tongue consists in 
feeling and perceiving what is about to be received with 
a view to becoming acquainted with its qualities — that 
is, in tasting. This office makes it necessary that the 
tongue * * shall have the power of properly expanding 
and relaxing, extending and retracting its papillae, of 
applying them to objects and touching the objects at 
all points." A K 35. 

Taste is occasioned when the matter to be tasted — 
attenuated and dissolved to some extent in the saliva, 
and warmed in the mouth * * affects and moves the pa- 
pill ae, whereby the motion impressed is conveyed to the 
general sensorium, and excites in the mind the idea of 
salt, acid, alkali, sweet, vinous, spiritous, bitter, aro- 
matic, hot, pungent acid, austere, or tastes compounded 
of these. Hence it easily appears why the same object 
occasions different tastes, according to the difference 
of age, temperament, disease, sex, habits, and according 
to what the person has been tasting previously." — 
Boerhaave, as quoted in the Animal Kingdom, N. 30. 

The third use of the tongue is talking. This is not, 
however, a natural use — it has to be acquired by 
practice. 



no LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

" By the office and gift of speaking, the tongue feeds 
the higher principles — the very mind itself ; by the 
office of eating, it feeds the lower principles, or the 
body. Thus it may be said to afford food to both soul 
and body — wherefore it guards the meeting of the two 
ways which lead to the regions of the body, to the viscera 
of the abodomen, through the pharynx and aesophagus, 
to the viscera of the chest through the larynx and trachea, 
as well as the crossing which leads to the cerebrum, the 
hall and palace of the mind." A. K. 36. 

Swedenborg, near the close of his analysis of the 
tongue, makes the following summary : , 

" These considerations show, not merely what is the 
tongue's form, active force and power of action, but also 
what its substance is ; they show that it consists of 
nervous fibres of a threefold origin, nature and use — 
of blood-vessels ramifying in all directions ; of muscular 
fibres variously intermingled with fat, and gently bound 
down by soft and delicate and beautiful bands ; also of 
tubuli and ducts passing through the middle of the 
muscular fibres, and proceeding from the glands on the 
surface ; and of membranes, ligaments, and fine ten- 
dinous meshes ; lastly of commissures, foramina and 
lacunae, containing liquid, saliva and mucus. 

''The particulars [concerning the tongue] which re- 
main to be supplied must be elicited from the neighbor- 
ing parts, contiguous and continuous ; that is to say, 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. in 

from the anatomy of the throat, palate, pharynx, 
oesophagus, &c. What is still wanting must be gathered 
from the origin of the nervous fibres. Anything further 
must come from higher powers and principles, and in 
the end from the highest. The simple tongues of 
nymphs, chrysallises, caterpillars, butterflies and the 
like, * * * must complete and crown the analysis." 

You can see from this that no created thing has an 
independent life. The lowest forms depend for their 
existence upon higher ones, and these upon still 
higher and higher forms, up to the Highest — the 
Lord — who alone is Substance and Form. 

In the Heavenly Doctrines there is a great deal of 
teaching about the tongue, and its use of speech in this 
world and the other. 

A. C. 4791. — The tongue affords entrance to the lungs 
and also to the stomach, thus it represents 
a sort of court-yard to spiritual and to ce- 
lestial things; to spiritual things because it 
ministers to the lungs and thence to the 
speech, and to celestial things because it 
ministers to the stomach which supplies the 
blood and the heart with aliment; that the 
lungs correspond to spiritual things and the 
heart to celestial, may be seen in N. 3635, 
3383 to 3896; wherefore the tongue in gen- 
eral corresponds to the affection of truth, or 



ii2 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

to those in the Grand Man who are in the 
affection of truth, and afterwards in the 
affection of good from truth. 

They, therefore, who love the Word of 
the Lord, and hence desire the cognitions 
of truth and good, pertain to that province, 
but with this difference, that some pertain 
to the tongue itself, some to the larnyx and 
the windpipe, some to the throat, some to the 
gums and some to the lips, for there is not 
the smallest thing appertaining to man with 
which there is not correspondence. 

That they who are in the affection of 
truth pertain to that province, understood 
in an extended sense, has been given me to 
experience frequently; and this by manifest 
influx, now into the tongue and then into 
the lips when it was also given me to con- 
verse with them; and it was observed that 
some also correspond to the interiors of the 
tongue and of the lips and others to the 
exteriors. The operation of those who with 
affection receive only exterior, but not in- 
terior truths, and yet do not reject the lat- 
ter, I felt, not into the interiors of the 
tongue, but into the exterior. 

A. C. 4792. — Because food and nourishment, correspond 
to spiritual food and nourishment, the taste 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 113 

corresponds to the perception and the affec- 
tion thereof. Spiritual food is science, in- 
telligence and wisdom; for from these things 
spirits and angels live, and from these also 
are they nourished, and they desire and ap- 
petite them as men who are hungering do 
food; hence the appetite corresponds to that 
desire. 

A. C. 1646. — The discourse of angels sometimes ap- 
pears in the world of spirits, and thus before 
the interior sight, as a vibration of light or 
resplendent flame, and this with a variation 
according to the state of their affection in 
discourse. 

It is only the common things of their dis- 
course as to the state of affections arising 
from numberless distinct things which are 
thus represented. 

A. C. 1647. — The speech of the celestial angels is dis- 
tinct from that of the spiritual angels and is 
still more ineffable and inexpressible. The 
things into which their thoughts are insinu- 
ated are the celestials and goods of ends; 
and they are therefore in the enjoyment of 
happiness itself, and what is wonderful, their 
speech is much more abundant; for they are 



ii4 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

in the very fountains and origins of the life 
of thought and speech. 

A. C. 1648. — There is a speech of good spirits and 
angelic spirits, simultaneous of many, par- 
ticularly in gyres or choirs ; concerning 
which, of the Divine mercy of the Lord, in 
the following : The speech in choirs has 
often been heard by me ; it is flowing as if 
rythmical ; they think nothing of words or 
ideas ; the senses flow into these spon- 
taneously, and no words or ideas inflow 
which multiply the sense, or divert it to 
anything else, and to which there adheres 
anything artificial, or which seems to them- 
selves elegant as proceeding from self or 
self-love ; for this would immediately dis- 
turb ; they do not stick in any word ; they 
think of the sense ; the words follow spon- 
taneously upon the sense ; they close in 
unities, for the most part simple, when in 
composites, by the accent they revolve them- 
selves into the following one — these things 
come from their thinking and speaking in 
society, and hence the form of dicourses 
has a cadence, according to the connection 
and unanimity of the society. 

Such in old time was the form of songs, 
and such is that of the Psalms of David. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 115 

A. C. 1649. — What is wonderful, this kind of speech 
having the rythmical or harmonic cadence 
of songs is natural to spirits, they speak thus 
to one another, although they are ignorant 
of it. All souls come immediately after 
into the habit of speaking in this manner. 

A. C. 4803. — It is worthy of relation, what is altogether 
unknown in the world, namely : That the 
states of good spirits and angels are con- 
tinually changing and perfecting, and that 
thus they are raised into the interiors of 
the province in which they are, and so into 
nobler functions ; for in Heaven there is a 
continual purification, and so to say a new 
creation ; nevertheless it is impossible for 
any angel ever to arrive at absolute perfec- 
tion to eternity ; the Lord alone is perfect, 
in Him and from Him is all perfection. 

They who correspond to the mouth are 
continually willing to speak, for in speaking 
they find the highest degree of pleasure ; 
when they are perfected, they are reduced 
to this, that they do not speak anything but 
what is profitable to their companions, to 
the common good, to Heaven, and to the 
Lord ; the delight of so speaking is increased 
with them to the extent in which the lust of 
regarding themselves in their speech and 



1 16 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

of seeking wisdom from their proprium 
perishes. 

A. C. 9048. — The Lord, when he was in the world, 
spake as in the Word of the Old Testament 
throughout, at once for the angels in Heaven, 
and for men in the world, for His speech 
was in itself Divine and celestial, because it 
was from the Divine and throuoh Heaven ; 
but the things which He spake were pre- 
sented by such things as corresponded in the 
world ; hence those things which are of the 
face signify such things as are of the affec- 
tions, and correspond to their functions and 
uses ; as the eye signifies the understanding 
of truth, the nostrils the perception of truth ; 
those things which are of the mouth, as the 
cheek-bones, the lips, the throat, the tongue, 
such things as relate to the utterance of 
truth. 

A. C. 1637. — Amongst the wonderful things which exist 
in the other life, is this, that the discourse 
of spirits with man is in his mother tongue, 
which they speak as readily and skilfully as 
if they had been born in the same country, 
and had been educated in the same tongue; 
and this, whether they be from Europe or 
from Asia, or from some other part of the 
odobe; likewise those who lived thousands 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 117 

of years before such a language existed. 
Yea, spirits know no other than that the 
language in which they discourse with man is 
their native tongue. It is similar with the 
other languages in which the man is skilled, 
but except these, they have not power to 
utter a syllable of any other language, unless 
it is immediately given them by the Lord. 
Infants, also, who departed this life before 
they had learned any language, speak in 
like manner. But the cause is that the lan- 
guage which is familiar to spirits is not a 
language of words but of ideas of thought, 
which is the universal of all languages; and 
when they are with men, the ideas of their 
thought are conveyed into the words which 
are within the man, and this so correspon- 
dently and aptly, that the spirits know no other 
than that the very words are their own, and 
that they are speaking in their own lan- 
guage, when yet they are speaking in the 
language of the man. I have sometimes 
discoursed with spirits concerning these par- 
ticulars. 

All souls are gifted with this gift, as soon 
as they come into the other life, that they 
can understand the speech of all that dwell 
in the universal circle of lands, just as if 
they had been born in them because they 



n8 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

perceive whatever man thinks, beside other 
faculties which are still more excellent. 

Hence it is that souls, after the death of 
the body, are able to speak and converse 
with all, of whatever country or tongue they 
had been. 

On a previous page we find teaching from the 
Heavenly Doctrines concerning those who correspond 
to the mouth — the delight they find in speaking, and 
also the change that takes place after regeneration in 
the character and quality of what they say, for " when 
they are perfected, they are reduced to this, that they 
do not speak anything but what is profitable to their 
companions, to the common good, and to the Lord. 1 ' 

From this we may know that, before they were per- 
fected, they spoke some things that were not profitable 
to the neighbor, and this brings us, after studying the 
many uses of the tongue, to the consideration of its 
many abuses. 

We abuse the tongue's power of tasting when we 
make that the chief end in eating, and so accustom the 
tongue to over-indulgence that it is continually and 
imperatively demanding things that are really hurtful 
to the health. 

It is easy enough to fall into such habits, and is 
almost always extremely difficult to correct them. 
Children indulge in such an abuse of the tongue when 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 119 

t they eat more candy than is good for them. Very 
many grown persons over-eat, because the food has a 
delicious taste, and this is gluttony. This abuse of the 
sense of taste is a very great evil ; it has a worse effect 
in debasing the thoughts and feelings than drunken- 
ness, and it is a much more common or general evil — ■ 
that is, a far greater number of persons injure their 
powers of usefulness by over-eating than by over- 
drinking. This is not generally believed in the world, 
because the bad effects of drunkenness are so much 
more easily seen and recognized. 

In consequence of the very frequent abuse of wines 
and liquors, many persons think it a sin to drink them 
at all ; but this is very foolish, as you may easily see by 
applying the same rule to solid food. There are large 
numbers of persons who injure themselves by eating 
too much : but it is not, therefore, a sin to partake of 
food. 

Many and painful are the diseases caused by con- 
stantly cramming the stomach beyond its powers of 
digestion ; in numberless cases life has been shortened 
and usefulness curtailed, when a little self-denial would 
have prevented it all. 

It is startling to learn (from an acquaintance of 
Swedenborg) that the first Divine command, given to 
Swedenborg, when his spiritual eyes were first opened, 
was to "Eat not so much" though he was only partaking 



420 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

of a simple repast of bread and milk. He had a view 
of the disgusting forms, visible in the spiritual world, 
engendered by over-indulgence of food. This may 
serve as a warning to all who would be of the Lord's 
New Church. 

How much more readily we can see that a thing is a 
right thing to do, and how much more readily we can 
force ourselves to do it, if we are careful to avoid 
dulling our minds and bodies with the sodden heaviness 
of too much food, eaten because, and only because it 
has an agreeable taste. 

We are taught in the Heavenly Doctrines that the 
angels have not the sense of taste, only something 
analogous to it 

The evils of gluttony and drunkenness are abuses of 
the tongue's power of tasting. 

Its still higher use of talking is also abused when it 
is made use of to express selfish and worldly thoughts 
and feelings — when it says things unprofitable to the 
neighbor. These unprofitable sayings are always 
prompted by some evil love, as we may see by reflecting 
upon what we have said. There is a legion of these 
evil loves ; such are impatience, resentment, desire to 
have our own way at any cost, desire to rule others, 
unwillingness to give up what we think are our rights 
for the common good, repining over duties that we 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 121 

have not learned to love, speaking harshly against those 
who have offended us, etc. 

There are other and still more grave abuses of the 
tongue's power of talking, that we, who are of the 
Lord's New Church must carefully avoid. 

Upon this subject there is abundant teaching and 
solemn warning in the Word, of which only a few 
verses are given here. In Matt, xii: 36-37, the Lord 
says; 

"But I say unto you that every useless word that men 
shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day 
of judgment." 

"For from thy words thou shalt be justified and from 
thy words thou shalt be condemned." 

And in Psalm xxxiv: 13. "Keep thy tongue from 
evil, and thy lips from speaking guile." 



TONGUES OF ANIMALS. 

The lowest animals do not seem to have tongues, the 
first sign of its existence "is in insects — which have a 
mouth furnished with two lips. On the inner surface 
of the lower lip is attached a sort of process or pro- 
tuberance, looking something like a tongue; usually it is 



122 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

very short, but in bees it is long, and that of the honey- 
bee is hairy; and in the wasp it is split into three 
divisions at the end. In one kind of insect, each of 
these three divisions terminates in a hard tooth-like 
point. Another insect has only one tooth as the tongue 
is not split. 

Some insects have fleshy tongues; in others it is more 
like cartilage, and some others, as the beetles, have the 
whole tongue hard and horny. In some cases the 
tongue is immovable, in others it can be thrown out of 
the mouth and then again drawn in. In the honey-bee 
the upper part of the tongue is cartilaginous; below the 
middle there is a membrane lying upon it, arranged 
like a bag. This bag first receives the honey which 
the tongue laps up from the flowers. The chief use of 
the tongue in some of the lower orders of animals is to 
seize the food. 

Very few fishes have anything like a tongue, and 
when it exists it never has papillae upon it, only hard, 
bony bodies resembling teeth. They seem to be made 
for seizing and tearing the food — it is doubtful if the 
sense of taste exists with them. 

Reptiles show a great difference in their tongues. 
Some are immovable, like that of the crocodile ; others, 
like the chameleon can protrude their tongues more 
than any other animal ; some are long; some are so 
short as to be described as wanting ; some are broad 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 123 

and thick ; some slender ; some have very perfect 
papillae ; some have none at all. 

These tongues all have one function in common, 
which is that of seizing the food — they do not taste it. 

The frog has a very curious tongue. It is fastened 
in front, and is free behind, so that the tip points back- 
wards, towards the throat. There are muscles attached 
to it that enable the animal to dart it out of the mouth 
very rapidly indeed. It is covered with a viscid mucus, 
to which the insects adhere, that the frogs feed upon. 

Snakes have long, slender tongues that are cleft or 
forked at the end ; they lie in a sheath in the mouth, 
and can be thrust out, while the jaws remain closed. 
The turtle has a soft, muscular tongue, with very large 
papillae, arranged very regularly in a close pile. Its 
structure implies the power of tasting its food. 

Birds have tongues made for seizing their food, not 
for tasting it. 

Animals which* taste their food generally keep it a 
little while in the mouth to masticate it ; but birds bolt 
their food without any delay. — Cyclopoedia of Anatomy 
and Physiology. 

The woodpecker has a very long, straight tongue, 
armed at the end with sharp teeth that point backward, 
like the barbs of a fishhook. He drills into the bark 
and wood of dead trees to find worms and insects to 



124 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

eat. He does this drilling with the two parts of his 
sharp bill closed tight ; but as soon as the bill 
reaches the worm, the two parts of the bill open and 
the barbed tongue is thrust forward into its body, which 
is thus drawn out for the woodpecker to eat. 

The tongue of the hummingbird is very curious. It 
has two tubes, placed lengthwise, side by side. At the 
tip of the tongue these tubes are a little separated, and 
their ends shaped like spoons. By means of them the 
honey is spooned up and flows through the tubes 
upon the tongue. But the bird uses its tongue in 
another way. It catches insects with it. The two 
spoons grasp the insect like a pair of tongs, and then 
the tongue curves inwards so as to put the insect into 
the bird's throat. 

Very many of the more perfect animals use their 
tongues for seizing as well as for tasting. The cow curves 
her tongue around a bunch of grass before biting it off. 
The cat uses her tongue for toilet purposes ; it is a sort 
of comb and brush, and washrag combined. 

The giraffe winds its tongue around the leaves of 
trees in order to bite them off more easily. 

Its tongue is very remarkable for its power of exten- 
sion. The giraffe can also draw it in and contract its 
tip to a very small point indeed. 

The tongue of the covered snail lies under the concave 
fold of a certain cartilage, and is covered therewith 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 125 

when the snail swallows its food in the same way as the 
larnyx, in us, is covered by the epiglottis. Its tongue 
approaches in this respect to the tongues of serpents. 
Below it is seen a very delicate muscle, which draws the 
tongue, together with the whole mouth, palate, jaws, 
and even the brain itself, inwards into the belly, or at 
least into the neck. On the point of the tongue is a 
little horny bone, divided into two or three very tender 
little teeth, with which, as with a hook, the snail when 
it is about to eat, first lays hold of the small herb, and 
then suddenly draws the piece into its mouth." 

''The little tongue of the naked or house snail in the 
fore part is of a bright or transparent red color, and 
covered on each side with many small parts, like the bran- 
chiae of fish, or like a comb with a double row of teeth 
These little parts grow paler towards the back of the 
tongue and consist of a substance between horn and 
bone, such as the little tongue has in its divisions." 
"The tongue of the aliekruik snail, which the Dutch 
eat in large quantities, is inclosed in a singular cavity 
the whole of which, it seems, may be protruded togeth- 
er out of the body. It is nearly two inches long, and 
at the same time beautifully convoluted into spiral folds 
like a serpent closely coiled; and it is thus placed on the 
inside, in the body, so that it passes with the gullet un- 
der the brain. The part of the tongue inside the body 
is cartilaginous, and most elaborate in its construction." 



126 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

"The tongue of the cuttle-fish which was thought to 
be a fungous substance, consists, I find, of seven little 
cartilaginous bones, which lie close to each other and 
are besides united by a particular membrane. The 
upper extremity or apex of the tongue is somewhat 
curved, but its lower portion is connected with some 
muscular and fungous flesh, in which it lies as in a hol- 
low tube. This fleshy portion of the tongue is covered 
with rugae and elegant folds, which seem to contain a 
great many salivary ducts. * * ** The tongue and 
the parts belonging to it, when taken out of the beak, 
generally bring along with them several of the muscles. 
When the tongue has been stripped of its membrane, 
we may see by the microscope that every one of the 
seven small bones is provided with about sixty curved 
dentiform, cartilaginous papillae (somewhat resembling 
the papillae of the tongue of the ox) by means of which 
the cuttle-fish when feeding, is the better enabled to 
move its food and dispose it for an easy swallowing. 
The fore part of these papillae is of a transparent 
amber color; but the hinder part, which constitutes the 
base of the tongue, is of a transparent white. If the 
tongue be inverted, its under side is found to resemble 
a regular web, produced by the combination of the car- 
tilaginous bones already described." — Swammerdan as 
quoted in the Animal Kingdom, N. 29. 



The Skin. 



Gen. hi. 21. — And the Lord God made for man and 
for his wife coats of skin, and clothed them. 

Gen. xxvii. 15. — And Rebekah took the garments of 
Esau, her eldest son, of desire, which were 
with her in the house, and put them upon 
Jacob, her younger son : 
16. — And the skins of the kids of the goats she 
made to put upon his hands, and upon the 
smooth of his necks. 

Exodus xxvi. 14. — And thou shalt make a covering 
for the tent, skins of red rams, and a 
covering of skins of badgers, from above. 

Exodus xxxiv. 29. — And it came to pass, when Moses 
came down from Mount Sinai, and the two 
Tables of the Testimony in the hand of 
Moses, when he came down from the 
mount, and Moses wist not that the skin 
of his faces shone, while he spoke with 
Him. 
30. — And Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw 
Moses, and behold, the skin of his faces 
shone ; and they were afraid to come 
nigh unto him. 

II Kings i. 8. — And they answered him, an hairy 
man, and with a girdle of leather girt 
about the loins. 

Matt. hi. 4. — And the same John had raiment of 
camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about 
his loins. 




Vertical Section through the Skin 

(Diagrammatic.) 



The Skin. 



INTRODUCTION. 

In the Chapter on the Tongue, you remember, three 
skins, or coverings, were mentioned — an outside one, 
that covered the papillae ; a middle one, pierced by the 
papillae ; and an internal one, from which the papillae 
arise. Not only the tongue has three skins, but the 
whole body is covered by as many, of which the outside 
one is called the cuticle. 

You can learn something of these skins by making 
experiments upon those of your own hand. Between 
the thumb and fore-finger they can be pii*ched and 
pulled without giving way. This shows that they are 
tough — you cannot easily tear them. After pulling or 
stretching them, if you let go, they will shrink back to 
their former position. This shows that they are elastic. 



THE CUTICLE. 

You may learn something about the cuticle from 
a blister, although it is not advisable to make one pur- 
posely for the sake of such knowledge. A blister 

129 



I30 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

separates the cuticle from the one below. Very soon, a 
fluid, looking like water, fills the space between, and puffs 
out the cuticle. Now, even though you were to pierce it 
with a pin, no blood would come out, and there would 
be no pain. This proves that blood-vessels and nerves 
of feeling do not come down into it. It is not well to 
prick the blister open to let the fluid out (unless the 
skins lying under it have been injured so that the fluid 
is mixed with blood), for the air will then rush in to the 
unprotected nerves of feeling, which object to it very 
much. Their objection to it and recoil from it, cause a 
sensation of soreness. The fluid is there to protect the 
underlying skins until a new skin can be formed 
from the blood to take the place of the old one. Then 
this fluid passes out gradually through those tiny open- 
ings called pores, leaving the blistered cuticle dry and 
dead. It can then be taken off without pain. You learn 
from this, that one use of the cuticle is to protect all the 
delicate parts lying under it. 

The cuticle has numberless tiny pouches that cover 
the papillae, but these papillae in the skin are not so 
large as those of the tongue, and the nerves coming 
down from the brain into them give the sense of touch, 
only, not of taste. Several great anatomists, quoted by 
Swedenborg, have written interesting descriptions of the 
cuticle. The following is from Heister, a famous 
German anatomist : 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. I3I 

DESCRIPTION OF THE CUTICLE. 

" The cuticle is a thin membrane closely encompassing 
the whole skin, of which it is in a manner a part, and on 
this account, also, is called by the Greeks, epidermis. 

" The cuticle is white in the European, black in the 
Ethiopian, or negro. 

" Its structure, or substance, consists of extremely 
minute lamellae, and as it were little scales, but which 
are closely connected to each other, and require the 
microscope to show them. 

" In these lamellae there are a great multitude of little 
foramina affording egress to the hairs, the transpiration, 
and the sweat, and ingress to mercury, and other things. 
These foramina are commonly called pores. 

"The thickness of the cuticle varies in different parts, 
being greatest in the soles of the feet and the palms of 
the hands ; in other parts the cuticle is very thin. 

"We see in it various furrows or lines, which are 
deeper in some places than in others, and exist all over 
the surface, but particularly in the palms of the hands. 

" On the tips of the fingers the furrows are spiral, and 
seem to defend the excretory ducts of the cutis, which 
are there arranged in a regular order." — Heister as 
quoted in Swedenborg's Animal Kingdom, n. 470. 

Leeuwenhoek, a celebrated Dutch microscopist, wrote 
about the cuticle as follows : 

" I pared the skin on the inside of the hand and 



132 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

fingers where it was sufficiently thick to enable me to 
cut off three or four lamellae without drawing blood. 
At length, by repeated observations and experiments, I 
obtained such results, that I can state for certain that in 
the whole field of the external skin of the body there is 
no space but what is perforated with excretory vessels, 
through which vessels both aqueous moisture and fat 
exhale in a perfectly orderly way. 

" Several times I applied a clean piece of glass for a 
moment to the face, just under the eye and close to the 
nose, where the skin is comparatively seldom touched 
or wiped, and when I submitted the glass to the micro- 
scope, I found it much stained with fat. 

" Afterwards, having cleaned the glass, I wiped this 
part of the face and rubbed it with a clean towel until 
the skin became red, and in order that no portion of 
the fat which was on the towel should be communicated 
to the face by the repeated rubbing, I frequently 
changed the part of the towel which I made use of. 
Then, in less than a quarter of a minute, I again applied 
the glass to the clean skin, and on again submitting 
the glass to the microscope, I saw so incredible a 
quantity of fatty and most minute halitus settled 
upon it as scarcely any one can conceive without 
witnessing. 

"After this, I repeatedly wiped the skin with a 
prefectly clean towel, and particularly that part of it to 
which I was about to apply the glass, and in less than a 
minute I applied the glass to the face, and when I looked, 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 33 

as before, I again saw the fatty halitus, but separate from 
each other. 

" Inasmuch as the vessels covering the skin lie so 
close together, and the skin itself is roughened by 
various little excavations and eminences, therefore these 
vessels are not distributed in an orderly and regular 
series. Their mouths, or orifices, look partly upwards 
and partly in an oblique direction. 

" I pared several lamellae from my skin, and submitted 
them to the microscope, and saw, with no small delight, 
that a little piece of skin no bigger than might be 
covered by a common grain of sand, was perforated 
with innumerable pores, which I distinguished with great 
clearness, the case being much as if we were to prick a 
little piece of paper with a very fine needle, and see the 
sun shining through the holes, According to the best 
estimates I can make, I conclude that a piece of skin the 
tenth of an inch long contains at least a hundred and 
twenty vessels." — Leeuwenhoek as quoted in Sweden- 
borg's Animal Kingdom, n. 478. 

ANALYSIS OF THE CUTICLE. 

After quoting, upon the subject of the cuticle, from 
several of the most learned anatomists of his time (wiser 
indeed, than the most learned anatomists of the present 
time), Swedenborg sums up all the scientifics obtained 
from them, in a short description of the character and 
uses of the cuticle. He not only sums up the knowledge 



134 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

obtained from them concerning- it, but he reasons from 
that knowledge in a manner the anatomists themselves 
were quite incapable of doing. 

He begins the subject by saying that man derives the 
possibility ot living in the material body from the world 
around him, especially from the atmospheres, of which 
there are three, one within and above the other ; the 
common air, the ether, and the aura, each one purer, more 
ethereal, and more powerful than the last ; these press 
upon the body at all points, on all sides, and thus hold it 
together. The body reacts with equal force against this 
force and weight of the atmospheres, and thus produces 
a state of things that is called equilibrium. 

Owing to this perfectly equal pressure and reaction, 
we are enabled to move, to rise up and walk, to have our 
dwelling-place upon the earth, to build up our abodes 
there, and to live in communities. 

The atmospheres have many other uses. They 
enable us to see and hear, to smell, taste and feel ; they 
communicate to us their heat and cold, their dryness and 
moisture. They nourish, recruit, and constantly renew 
our blood by means of the unseen, ethereal food furnished 
by it, that enters the body through innumerable pores 
all over its surface, and also by the lungs. 

The air enters the body (to the threshold only, of the 
blood) heavily laden, if it be pure, with rich food which 
the blood eagerly seizes, exchanging for it, so to speak, 
the impure matters made up of worn-out fluids and 
worn-out tissue, with which it loads the air and then 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 35 

expels it lest it " should penetrate deeper than our nature 
allows." 

Then at last, when the soul has quitted the material 
body forever, the earthy " and atmospheric world receives 
into its bosom this corporeal system (the body) reared 
up and composed out of its elements, and which has now 
ceased to live, buries it in the tomb, requires of it the 
materials it has borrowed, and again disperses them/' 

All this teaching shows what we receive from the world 
around us, and what from ourselves ; namely, that the 
world sustains our bodies, so that our souls may for a 
time dwell in them and grow to the perfect stature of 
men — that is, of angels. 

" For this end it is that we are begirt and surrounded 
by so many coverings and tunics, by means of which 
communication is maintained." 

You know that the objects by which we are surrounded 
in this world do not live, do not exist, by themselves. 
They were created by the Lord, by means of spiritual 
substances, existing in the same form in the spiritual 
world ; so that the part that is visible to our earthly eyes 
is only a small part of the thing itself. The spiritual 
substance may properly be called the soul of the corre- 
sponding natural object, which soul preserves the material 
form, and keeps it in existence here, so long as it can 
perform a use for human beings while they are living 
upon earth. This is true of the atmosphere as well as 
of all other things. 

In a posthumous work concerning the Last Judgment, 



I36 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

given by the Lord, through Swedenborg, for the use of 
the New Church upon earth, but which has not yet been 
published in English, there is important teaching con- 
cerning the atmosphere of both worlds. 

L.J. (Post.) 3 1 3. — " But it is to be known that the atmos- 
pheres originating from the Sun of Heaven, 
which is the Lord, properly speaking, are not 
three, but they are six ; three above the sun 
of the world, and three below the sun of the 
world. 

"The three below the sun of the world 
continually follow the three natural atmos- 
pheres, and cause that man in the natural 
world can think and feel. 

" For, the atmospheres originating from the 
sun of the world, have not life in themselves 
because they originate from a sun which is 
pure fire ; whereas the atmospheres origi- 
nating from the Sun of Heaven, which is the 
Lord, have life in themselves, because they 
originate from the Sun which is pure Love 
and Wisdom. 

"The atmospheres originating from the 
sun of the world, which is pure fire, cause 
those things which are in the Earth, and 
which are in the human body, to subsist, and 
to be held together in connection, and not to 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 37 

be changed except according to the laws of 
natural order. 

" Hence is the difference of things in the 
natural and spiritual worlds." 

The people of the Lord's New Church have instruction 
given them in the Heavenly Doctrines to enable them to 
think of spiritual things through, or by means of the 
things of the natural world. This is the right direction 
for our thoughts to take, and though at first we have to 
force ourselves to form the habit, little by little it will 
become delightful to us. 

We cannot overrate the importance of acquiring this 
habit ; for it leads our minds from natural objects to 
spiritual things, and if we follow these to their beginning, 
they will lead us up through the Heavens to the Lord 
Who is the Source of them all, and who preserves all 
things in an unbroken connection from Himself down to 
the very stones under our feet. 

The habit of continually thinking of the spiritual or 
real side of material objects will also help us to avoid 
setting too much value upon the things of this world, as 
we are all very much inclined to do. It will soon enable 
us to judge between the two, and to see how infinitely 
more precious the things of the spiritual world really are. 

While studying the subject of the skin, it would be 
profitable to think of the things in this world, and in the 
other as well, that perform the same uses as those of the 
skin. There are many things of this character; even 



I38 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

individuals, and whole classes of persons in this world, 
may have one or more of these uses to perform for the 
community as the business of their lives ; and whole 
Societies in the other life do the work of the skin in the 
Grand Man, as will be seen further on, from extracts 
from the Doctrines. It is a similarity of use that unites 
and connects the most unlike things. 

In reasoning concerning the cuticle, Swedenborg shows 
that because of the uses it has to perform, it must be, 
just what it is. 

He shows that it collects and completes the uses of the 
underlying layers ; that it connects and sustains them, 
and forces them to perform their duties aright ; also, 
that like a coat of mail, it protects them from whatever 
would injure them in the outside world ; and lastly, that 
through its numberless pores it admits into the body a 
great variety of nourishment from the three atmospheres 
and permits impure and hurtful matters to pass out. 

The above is an outline of what Swedenborg teaches 
in the following extract from the Animal Kingdom. This, 
with several extracts from the Heavenly Doctrines, closes 
the subject of the cuticle in this work, although, as was 
said of previous subjects, this is only the beginning of 
knowledge concerning it. 

SWEDENBORG'S SUMMARY CONCERNING THE 

CUTICLE. 

" The cuticle or epidermis is the most general of all the 
tunics of the body, covering its circumference and ulti- 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 39 

mate limits from top to bottom, or from the crown of the 
head to the extremities of the fingers and toes, and only 
terminating in the apertures there to insinuate itself 
more deeply inwards ; divided in the most distinct man- 
ner into little plates or scales applied one to the other, 
intermediate in character between membrane and horn, 
hence pliable and elastic ; growing upon the subjacent 
reticulum, and by this means connected with the papil- 
lary substance or cutis. 

"This thin, foliated tunic is diversified by furrows, 
ridges, and little lines, drawn and channeled transversely, 
obliquely, circularly, spirally, and in this manner is par- 
titioned into diversiform areas, islands, and tuberosities, 
in the extremes particularly ; and at the same time it is 
full of little foramina and imperceptible pores, coming up 
from the subjacent papillary and glandular congeries, 
whence it is perspirable throughout. 

" Its color varies, according to temperaments, to the 
height of the sun at noon, and the climate ; but never- 
theless it is destitute of sensation, and without discern- 
ible fibres or vessels. 

I. 

"This squamous cuticle collects the particular utilities 

and functions of all the tunics and strata that lie under 

it, represents them in itself in a general manner, and 

completes them. 

II. 

" It maintains the connection of the parts spread 
under it; it sustains their changes of state, and impels 
them to perform their offices aright. 



I40 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

III. 

" Like a coat of mail, constructed of wonderful scales, 
folds and joints, it protects and defends the sensitive 
soft and agile tunics that it covers in, against injury from 
the surrounding air, against its heat, cold, perturbations, 
and various conditions not in agreement with the state 
of the body ; and moreover against the rough and sting- 
ing particles of its vapors, and different fluids, and it 
takes upon itself in the first instance the changes to 
which these will give rise in the body, tempers them, 
and tends to break their force. 

IV. 

" It admits from the air and ether comparatively pure, 
simple elements which are in harmony with the natural 
state, and sends them down, as new aliment, into pas- 
sages that lead to the blood. On the other hand, it sends 
out obsolete volumes of effluvia and sweats consisting 
of useless lymph, brine, and rancid fat, and disperses 
them into the contiguous air." — The Animal Kingdom, 
n. 487, 488. 

DIVINE TEACHING CONCERNING THE CUTICLE. 

A. C. 5552. — Those things in man which have the great- 
est life correspond to those societies in the 
heavens which have the greatest life, and 
therefore the greatest happiness ; as are 
those to which correspond man's external 
and internal sensories, and the things which 



JLESSONS IN ANATOMY. I4I 

are of the understanding and the will ; but 
the things in man which have less life corre- 
spond to such societies in heaven as are in 
less life ; as are the cuticles which encompass 
the whole body, also the cartilages and bones 
which support and sustain everything in the 
body, and also the hairs, which spring from 
the cuticles. 

A. C. 5553. — The societies to which the cuticles corre- 
spond are in the entrance to heaven ; and to 
them is given a perception of the quality of 
the spirits who crowd to the first threshold, 
whom they either reject or admit ; so that 
they may be called the entrances or thresh- 
olds of heaven. . . . 

A. C. 5554. — There are very many societies which con- 
stitute the external integuments of the body, 
with a difference from the face to the soles 
of the feet, for everywhere there is a differ- 
ence. . . . 

A. C. 5557. — There are also spirits by whom others 
speak, and they scarce understand what they 
say ; this they have confessed, but still they 
talk a o-reat deal. Those become of this 
description, who in the life of the body have 
merely babbled, and have thought nothing 
at all of what they have said, and have loved 
to speak on all subjects. I have been told 
that they are in companies, and that some of 



I42 LESSONS IN ANATOMY.. 

them have reference to the membranes 
which cover the viscera of the body, and 
some to the cuticles which are but slightly 
sensitive ; for they are only passive powers, 
and do nothing from themselves, but from 
others. 

A. C. 5559. — The conformation of the contextures in 
the cuticles has been shown me representa- 
tively. In the case of those with whom those 
extremes corresponded to the interiors, or 
with whom things material in these were 
obedient to things spiritual, the conformation 
was a beautiful contexture of spires wonder- 
fully twined together, after the manner of 
fine lace, which can never be described ; 
they were of an azure color. Afterward 
were represented forms still more continu- 
ous, more subtle, and more neatly fashioned : 
as such appear the cuticles of a regenerated 
man. But in the case of those who have 
been deceitful, these extremes appear like a 
conglutination of mere serpents. 

A. C. 4325. — The parts which surround the body, as 
the muscles and skin, and also the organs of 
the senses, receive, for the most part, fibres 
from the cerebrum ; hence man has sense, 
and hence motion according to his will. 

o 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 43 

A. C. 3540. — " Skins signify externals, because skins are 

the outermosts of an animal, in which its in- 

» 

teriors are terminated, in like manner as the 
skin or the cuticles in man. This derives 
• its significative from a representative in 
another life. There are those who relate to 
the province of the skin ; they are such as 
are only in external good, and its truths. 
Because skins signified externals, it was 
commanded that the covering of the tent 
should be of the skins of red rams, and over 
these the skins of badgers. In like manner 
that Aaron and his sons, when the camp 
proceeded, should cover the ark of the cove- 
nant with the veil of a covering, and should 
put upon it a covering, the skin of a badger ; 
and upon the table, and the things which 
were upon it, should spread a cloth of scar- 
let double-dyed, and should cover it with a 
covering, with a badger's skin. Likewise 
they should give the candlestick and all its 
vessels under a covering of badger's skin ; 
and give all the vessels of the ministry under 
a cloth of blue, and should cover them with 
a covering, with a badger's skin. Inasmuch 
as the prophets represented teachers, and 
thence the doctrine of good and truth from 
the Word, and Elias the Word itself, and in 
like manner John, who therefore is called 



144 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

the Elias that was to come, therefore that 
they might represent the Word, as it is in 
its external form — that is, in the letter — 
Elias was girded with a girdle of skin at his 
loins, and John had a garment of camel's 
hair, and a girdle of skin round his loins." 

A. C. 8980. — " Those who are in the entrance to heaven 
communicate by the truth which is of faith 
with those who are in heaven, and by the 
delight conjoined to truth with those who are 
outside heaven ; not otherwise than the skins 
or coats do which encompass the body, which 
by the sense of touch communicate with the 
world, and by a fibrous connection with the 
life of the soul in the body ; hence it is that 
those who are in the entrance to heaven are 
called Cuticulars in the Grand Man. But 
such are of many genera and species, as 
are the cuticles or coats in the body ; there 
being some which encompass the whole 
body, some the interiors in general, as the 
peritoneum, the pleura, and the pericardium, 
and some which encompass each of the 
viscera there in particular." 

A. C. 10,036. — "The skin signifies truth in ultimates, 
and, in the opposite sense, the false therein. 
This is from correspondence, for those who 
have reference to the skin in the Grand Man, 
or in Heaven, are those who are in the truths 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 45 

of faith, and not so much in corresponding 
good, who are in the threshold to heaven ; 
hence by the skin in the abstract sense is 
signified truth in ultimates." 

A. C. 8955, 8956. — " All on the planet Saturn, differently 
from ours, know that they shall live after 
death ; wherefore also they make no account 
of their bodies, only so far as may be neces- 
sary for the life which, they say, is to endure 
and serve the Lord. 

" They also care little about food and 
clothing ; they feed on fruits and pulse of 
various kinds, which their earth produces ; 
and they are slightly clad, for they are en- 
compassed with a thick skin or tunic, which 
repels the cold." 

D. P. 254. — "It has been provided by the Lord that 
those to whom the Gospel could not come, 
but a religion only, should also be able 
to have a place in that Divine Man — 
that is, in Heaven— by constituting those 
parts that are called skins, membranes, car- 
tilages, and bones ; and that they, like 
others, should be in heavenly joy. That 
before the Lord, Heaven is as one Man, 
and that therefore Heaven corresponds to all 
things and to every single thing in man, and 
also that there are those who answer to 
skins, membranes, cartilages and bones, may 



I46 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

be seen in the work concerning Heaven and 
Hell, published at London, in the year 1758, 
and in the Arcana Coelestia." 



SECOND OR MIDDLE SKIN. 

The skin lying immediately under the cuticle, and 
closely attached to it, is called the reticulum, or corpus 
reticulare Malpighii. In English, this means the reticu- 
lated or net-like body, or layer of Malpighi. It is said to 
be of Malpighi, because this celebrated anatomist either 
discovered it, or wrote something about it. But the fol- 
lowing description of it was written by Heister : 

" The corpus reticulare Malpighii ... is an exceed- 
ingly fine, delicate membrane, perforated like a net with 
innumerable minute foramina. It lies immediately under 
the cuticle, and when the latter is brought away from the 
cutis, either by artificial means, or by accident, the reti- 
culus adheres so very firmly to it, that a separation of the 
two becomes almost impossible, the reticulum seeming to 
be nothing more than the inner surface of the cuticle. 

"In examining the reticulum, we find that it is most 
abundant in those places where the sensibility of the skin 
is most acute, as in the palms of the hands, the tips of the 
fingers, and the soles of the feet: it is also seen on the 
tongue, and indeed much more plainly and distinctly than 
elsewhere ; and the tongue, therefore, is the part in which 
its nature and constitution may be most successfully in- 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 47 

vestigated ; in other parts it is so thin as to be scarcely 
discernible. 

" It is of a white color in the European ; but deep black 
(although the cutis is perfectly white) in the Ethiopian ; 
in the mulatto it is of a lighter shade. 

" Hence the color of different races, and especially the 
blackness of the Ethiopian race is mainly dependent upon 
this membrane. Its uses are, to transmit through its little 
foramina the hairs, the cutaneous papillae, and the excre- 
tory and absorbent ducts of the cutis ; to maintain these 
parts in a certain and determinate arrangement, so as to 
prevent them from being easily moved away from their 
places : and it also appears to preserve the softness of 
the papillae and their aptitude for touch. 

"The cutis is a strong membrane, as thick as leather, 
of an elastic character, and investing the whole body. 
By its upper surface it is connected with the reticulum 
and the cuticle ; by its lower surface, which is slightly 
pitted, with the fat, this latter connection being loose in 
some parts, but very close in others. 

" Its thickness and consistence vary in different parts 
of the body ; and also in different animals, as we know 
by the differences in leather. It has a number of furrows, 
incisures or lines, common to it with the cuticle. 

"It exhibits certain large openings, as in the mouth, 
the nose, the ears, etc., in which parts, however, the 
cutis may more properly be said to be reflected than 
perforated ; and also smaller openings, commonly called 
pores, which in their turn are subdivided into great and 



I48 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

small, and give egress to hairs, the transpiration, and 
the sweat ; and ingress to mercury, the matter of con- 
tagions, etc. 

"The larger pores are visible to the naked eye, in the 
nose and ears particularly ; but the smaller pores are 
demonstrated by the microscope, and by the passage of 
mercury through leather. 

" If we examine the structure or substance of the 
cutis, we shall find that it consists of a wonderful plait- 
ing of very tough, single, tendinous fibres ; of vast 
numbers of blood-vessels ... of a multitude of nerves 
constituting papillae, for the most part pyramidal in 
shape and reaching forth through the cuticle. These 
papillae are most conspicuous (that is to say, after the 
removal of the cuticle) in the lips, the palms of the 
hands, especially about the tips of the fingers, and in 
the soles of the feet, and constitute the primary organ 
of touch. . . . 

" The hairs are usually considered as belonging to 
the cutis, and are found in the greatest quantity on 
the head. When they grow on the body, they are 
called [in Latin] pili ; when on the head, capilli!' — 
Heister, as quoted in Swedenborg's Ani?nal Kingdom, 

n. 471-473- 

The following extract concerning the cutis, was written 
by Winslow, a Dutch anatomist : 

"The inner surface of the body of the cutis is covered 
over with granules or small tubercles commonly called 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. I 49 

cutaneous or miliary glands. . . These granules are 
partly imbedded in the substance of the cutis, in little 
fossulae, which answer to the same number of little 
moulds or caps in the adipose substance. Their excre- 
tory ducts open on the surface of the skin, sometimes 
through the papillae, sometimes on one side of them. 

" The greater part of them are the sources of the sweat, 
and there are some of them that supply an unctuous and 
fatty matter, of different density, as in the hairy scalp, on 
the back, behind the ears, at the end of the nose, where, 
in certain subjects, this matter may be squeezed in the 
form of small worms. . . . 

" By macerating the skin in water, or any other con- 
venient liquid, these granules or corpuscules become 
very visible, especially in the skin at the end of the nose, 
and in that of the arm-pits. 

"The late Mons. Duvernay clearly demonstrated to 
the Royal Academy of Sciences the structure of some 
of these cutaneous glands, which appeared like con- 
volutions of small intestines, plentifully supplied with 
capillary vessels. The illustrious Morgagni, Professor of 
Padua, has given the name of glandulae sebaceae to those 
which furnish the unctuous matter above mentioned. 

" Besides these granules, there are other small solid 
and hardish bodies, almost of an oval figure, contained 
in the substance of the skin. These are the roots or 
bulbs from which the hairs arise. 

"The skin is perforated by an infinity of small bodies 
called pores, which are of two kinds. Some are more 



I50 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

or less visible, as the orifices of the lacteal ducts of the 
mammae, the orifices of the excretory canals of the cuta- 
neous glands, and the passages for the hairs. The 
other pores are imperceptible to the naked eye, but 
visible enough through a microscope. Their existence 
is also proved by the cutaneous transpiration, and by 
the penetration of the subtle parts of topical applications ; 
which two circumstances may furnish legitimate reason 
for dividing these pores into arterial and venous." — 
Winslow, as quoted in Swedenborg's Animal Kingdom, 
n. 475-478. 

The following teaching in regard to the difference 
between the sweat and the perspiration of the body is 
an extract from Boerhaave, the most celebrated physi- 
cian of his age, who was born in the year 1688 in 
Holland : 

"The Excretion of the Sweat. — Underneath the 
cutis, upon the fat, all over the body, lie what are called 
the miliary glands ; thickly set ; furnished with an artery, 
vein and nerve, and giving forth an excretory vessel, 
which, rising through a foramen in the reticular sub- 
stance, discharges the sweat by an open orifice under 
the epidermis ; and is covered by a hollow, elevatable, 
roundish valve, placed beneath the cuticle, and capable 
both of transmitting- and of confining the humor. This 
[vessel] is the principal organ for the excretion of the 
gross sweat, there being other vessels . . . for pouring 
out the thinner moisture. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. I 5 I 

" The Sanctorian [or Insensible] Perspiration. — Be- 
sides the above, there are other exhalent vessels under 
the little scales of the epidermis, opening obliquely, and 
of such exceeding fineness that Leeuwenhoek reckons 
that 125,000 of them open in a space that may be cov- 
ered by a single grain of sand. By these vessels a 
most subtle humor is constantly transpiring from every 
point of the body, which humor is named the Sanctorian 
perspiration, from its discoverer, Sanctorius, who has all 
the credit both of originating and completing this doc- 
trine. The exhalation of this humor is carried on by 
the whole external epidermis, as well as by the cuticle of 
the mouth, the nares, the fauces, the larynx, the lungs, 
the oesophagus, the stomach, the intestines, the bladder, 
and the uterus ; hence its quantity is greater than that 
of all the other excretions put together. . . . We may 
understand that when the sweat is increased and its ves- 
sels enlarged, the perspiration must necessarily be 
diminished and its vessels compressed ; also that this 
perspirable matter is converted into sweat by violent 
exercise and excessive heat, but that it is very greatly 
assisted by moderate exercise and warmth, and that 
nothing is more conducive to its escape than gentle and 
long-continued friction. " — Boerhaave, as quoted in 
Swedenborg's Animal Kingdom, n. 479. 

As with all the other subjects treated of in that won- 
derful book, the Animal Kingdom, Swedenborg first 
quotes the most learned anatomists of his time, then 



152 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

sums up their knowledge and gives his own conclusions 
from it. Some portions of his descriptions of the cutis 
and its uses are quoted here — such portions as you can 
understand; for the rest, you will have to wait till you 
are old enough to study the Animal Kingdom, where it 
is treated of at great length. 

Swedenborg calls the cutis the papillary substance, 
because the papillae, into which the nerves of feeling 
enter, originate in it; it is the "true organic substance 
of touch." 

The cutis is " thick, hard, erect, and acuminated 
[sharply pointed] in some parts ; comparatively thin, 
soft, depressed, and flat in others ; displaying various 
windings and gyrations, formed of furrows, ridges, and 
lines, straight, oblique, curved, waving, spiral, arranged 
in wonderful series, and likewise subdivided ; marked 
out and tesselated into areas, squares, globes or circles, 
and divers other forms, regular and irregular." — Animal 
Kingdom, n. 500. 

We can see some of the " furrows, ridges, and lines " 
on the inner sides of the fingers. 

The skin is never the same in any two organs or 
members of the body. How thick it is in the hands 
which we use so much, and how thin and delicate on the 
lips, whose use is to touch the food and thus warn the 
tongue of its quality. 

"This papillary substance, thus arranged in series by 
means of the reticular membrane, or reticulum MalpigJiii, 
. . . according to the presence of pleasant or un- 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 53 

pleasant touch, either puts forth and points itself, or 
draws back and smoothes itself, or inflames and hardens, 
or cools and softens, or writhes and curls. Moreover, 
in its furrows and sinuosities the cutis is perforated with 
innumerable tubules, emissary ducts, pores, and vessels, 
evaporating or else absorbing juices and vapors, thick 
or thin, or almost purely aqueous, or urinous, saline, or 
fatty." — Animal Kingdom, n. 500. 

In addition to these tubes, ducts, and pores, there are 
soft bodies called glands lying on the fat under the cutis. 
These glands are formed by nervous fibres coming down 
into the skin from the brain. 

The finest twigs of the arteries end in these glands, 
and the tiny branches of the veins begin in them. From 
these glands also tubes or pores pass up through the 
other skins to the air. Placed between these glands are 
numberless threads of nerves, with ducts, arteries, and 
veins running all over and around them, advancing to 
the papillae, receding from them, and by their extremities 
sporting around them in a wonderful manner. 

The uses of the cutis are as numerous as the parts of 
which it is composed. Swedenborg gathers them all 
into three general divisions, in each of which are very 
many particular uses. The three general divisions are 
as follows : 

First. — " The cutis serves as a new source of fibres, 
and as an end and beginning of the vessels." 

You have already learned that the blood-vessels, the 



154 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

veins, and arteries, begin and end in the glands of the 
skin. In these same glands the nervous fibres end, and 
the other fibres begin which go to help form the viscera 
of the body. 

Secondly. — The cutis sucks in nourishment for the 
blood through its numberless pores, and also through 
them throws out useless matter into the air. 

Thirdly. — It is the organ of the sense of touch. The 
nerves of feeling come down from the brain into the 
papillae in the skin, and through them the impression of 
everything that touches them is sent to the brain. 

The three outside or external coverings of the body 
are called skins, while the inner or internal coverings 
are, generally, called membranes. 

The skin is continuous, through the nose and mouth, 
with the membranes of the three great regions of the 
body — the brain, the thorax or chest, and the abdomen. 

"The interior membranes of the body are continued 
membranes of the head." — S. D. 1725. 

The outermost membrane that surrounds the brain is 
also the inside lining of the skull. It is called the " dura 
mater" or "hard mother," because of its tough, fibrous 
structure, and it is also called by Swedenborg, " the 
common mother of membranes." — The Brain, n. 254. 

The next one under it is remarkably delicate and trans- 
parent ; it is therefore called the u arachnoid " or " spider- 
web " membrane. 

The one under this, in immediate contact with the 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY- 1 55 

brain, is so soft that it is called the " pia mater " or " soft 
mother;" it dips down into every fold, and around every 
lobe, and into every tiny fissure of the brain. 

The dura mater and pia mater clothe every nerve that 
goes out into the body. They cover the optic nerve, and 
form the three coats of the eye, the sclerotic, the choroid, 
and the retina. The dura mater lines the orbit or cavity 
in which the eye is placed, and is also closely connected 
with the lining membrane of the middle ear, and with the 
mucous membrane of the nasal passages. So that the 
brain, by means of its own substance, or the nerves, and 
its own coverings around them, is present everywhere 
in the body. 

Through the larynx, or breathing pipe, the external 
skin is continuous with the pleura — the membrane lining 
the thorax — and through the pharynx and oesophagus it is 
continuous with the peritoneum that lines the cavity of 
the abdomen. 

Wherever found, within the body or without, mem- 
branes and skins have the same general uses of covering, 
protecting, keeping in place, and affording communication. 
Those within the body have also another use — of transmit- 
ting motion. The activity of the brain, the beating of the 
heart, the breathing of the lungs, are all conveyed, in 
wonderful order and harmony, from their respective 
centres to the remotest extremities of the body, through 
the coverings and linings, the walls, and tunics and tissues 
of the various organs. The entire body seems to be 
made up of skins and membranes that form tubes, and 



I56 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

sacs, and cavities for containing and conveying fluids of 
different kinds. With what respect we should look upon 
the human body, because it is so fearfully and wonder- 
fully made ; because it is the temple of the soul, and 
because the whole organic Grand Man relates to its 
purer and grosser membraneous things, and the Lord 
alone to its interior things \ 

A knowledge of its wonderful structure, of its uses, of 
its relation to the soul, to heaven and to the Lord, should 
lead us to carefully obey the laws of health by which it 
can be kept in the best possible condition. 

The following pages contain some teaching about the 
sense of touch. It is from the Heavenly Doctrines, and 
is therefore the Lord's teaching to those who will be of 
His Church on the earth and afterwards in the Heavens : 

C. L. 210. — The sense proper to conjugial love is the 
sense of touch. — Every love has its own 
sense. The love of seeing, from the love of 
understanding, has the sense of sight, and 
its pleasantnesses are symmetries and 
beauties. 

The love of hearing, from the love of 
hearkening and obeying, has the sense of 
hearing, and its pleasantnesses are harmonies. 

The love of knowing the things that float 
about in the air, from the love of perceiving, 
has the sense of smelling, and its pleasant- 
nesses are fragrances. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. I 57 

The love of self-nourishment, from the 
love of being imbued with goods, has the 
sense of taste, and its delights are delicacies. 

The love of knowing objects, from the 
love of circumspection and self-protection, 
has the sense of touch, and its pleasantnesses 
are titillations. 

The reason why the love of conjunction 
with a consort, from the love of uniting good 
and truth, has the sense of touch proper to 
it is that this sense is common to all the 
senses, and hence derives its support. That 
this love brings all the above-mentioned 
senses into communion with it, and appro- 
priates their pleasantnesses, is well known. 
That the sense of touch is devoted to con- 
jugial love and is proper to it, is evident from 
its sports, and from the exaltation of its sub- 
tleties to the highest degree of what is ex- 
quisite. 
C. L. 396. — "That the communication and therefore the 
conjunctions of innocences is principally 
effected by the touch, is evident from the 
pleasantness of carrying infants in the 
arms, from embraces and kisses, especially 
in the case of mothers, who are delighted in 
laying their mouth and face upon their 
bosoms, and at the same time from the touch 
of the palms of their hands ; in general from 



I58 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

the sucking of the breasts, and nursing; 
moreover, from stroking their naked body, 
and from the unwearied pains of swathing 
and cleansing them on their laps. 

" That the communications of love and its 
delights between consorts are effected by 
the sense of touch, has been occasionally 
shown above. The reason why communica- 
tions of the mind are also effected by the 
same sense is, because the hands are a man's 
ultimates, and his firsts are together in the 
ultimates, whereby also all things of the body 
and all things of the mind are kept together 
in an inseparable connection. Hence it is that 
Jesus touched infants {Matt, xix, 13, 15 ; 
Mark x, 13-16), and that He healed the sick 
by the touch ; and that those who touched 
Him were healed ; hence also it is that in- 
augurations into the priesthood are at this 
day effected by the laying on of hands. 

" From these considerations it is evident 
that the innocence of parents and the inno- 
cence of infants meet each other by the 
touch, especially of the hands, and thereby 
join themselves together as by kisses." 
In the numbers just quoted, we are taught the high 
and sacred use of the sense of touch ; we are taught 
that it is the sense devoted to conjugial love, which love 
is known only in the Lord's New Church. It is a most 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 59 

holy and sacred love between consorts in this Church. 
Havinor learned from the Doctrines the hieh use of the 
sense of touch, you are better prepared to understand the 
importance of guarding it so as to avoid harming the love 
to which it is devoted. You have learned that the " in- 
nocence of parents and the innocence of children meet 
each other by the touch, especially of the hands." 

Not only are good affections thus communicated, but 
evil ones as well. Diseases can also be communicated 
from one person to another by the touch. It is therefore 
of great importance to guard this sense with the utmost 
care. 

D. L. W. 41. — Man has five external senses, called touch, 
taste, smell, hearing, and sight. The subject 
of touch is the skin by which man is envel- 
oped, the very substance and form of the skin 
causing it to feel whatever is applied to it. 
The sense of touch is not in the things applied, 
but is in the substance and form of the skin, 
which are the subject ; the sense itself is 
nothing but its affection from the things ap- 
plied. 
A. C. 1 88 1. — Spirits are very indignant, yea, they are 
angry, when they are told that men do not 
believe that they see, and hear, and feel by 
the touch. They said that, still, men ought 
to know that without sense there is no life, 
and that the more exquisite the sense is, so 
much the more excellent is the life. 



l60 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

A. C. 3528. — That to feel is the inmost and the all of 
perception, is . . . because every sensitive 
is nothing else than an external perceptive, 
and the perceptive is nothing else than an 
internal sensitive. Moreover, every sensi- 
tive and every perceptive, which appears so 
various, refers itself to one common and uni- 
versal sense, namely, the sense of touch ; the 
varieties, as the taste, the smell, the hearing, 
and the sight, which are external sensitives, 
are nothing but the genera thereof, arising 
from the internal sensitive, that is, from the 
perceptive. 

A. C. 322. — Men should be on their guard against the 
false opinion that spirits are without a far 
more exquisite sensitive than in the life 
of the body, for I know the contrary from a 
thousand and a thousand experiences. Should 
they be unwilling to believe, in consequence 
of their supposition concerning the spirit, let 
them ascertain for themselves, when they 
come into the other life, where they will be 
compelled to believe by their own experience. 
They have not only sight, for they live in 
light ; and good spirits, angelic spirits, and 
angels, in such light that the midday light of 
this world can hardly be compared with it 
. . . they have hearing also, and that so ex- 
quisite that their hearing in the body cannot 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. l6l 

be compared with it . . . they have a most 
exquisite touch, whence come the pains and 
torments in hell ; for all sensations have re- 
lation to the touch, of which they are merely 
diversities and varieties. ... In a word, 
they have lost nothing by death, but they are 
like men, but more perfect, without bones 
and flesh and the imperfections from them. 
They acknowledge and perceive, that whilst 
they lived in the body, it was the spirit that 
felt, and although it appeared in the body, it 
was not of the body ; and therefore that, on 
the rejection of the body, sensations live 
much more exquisitely. Life consists in the 
sense, since without the sense there is no 
life ; and such as the sense is, such is the 
life, which may be known to every one. 



PRODUCTS OF THE SKIN. 

Skins and their products, such as hair, fur, wool, 
feathers, bristles, horn, etc. (all of which are varieties of 
hair), are used in countless way for the needs, the com- 
fort, the well-being and adornment, not only of civilized 
nations, but of half-civilized and savage peoples as well. 

The latter are, perhaps, even more dependent upon 
skins than the nations possessing a greater variety of 
material, such as cotton, silk, hemp, etc. The tent under 
which a nomad sleeps, the bed upon which he lies, the 



1 62 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

more or less of clothing he wears, the saddle upon his 
horse, are all of skin, or something growing out of a 
skin. 

The work of obtaining and preparing skins and their 
products, and of shaping them into useful articles, gives 
employment to a vast number of persons. Hunters, 
trappers, shepherds, furriers, tanners, shoemakers, spin- 
ners, weavers, tailors, dressmakers, glovemakers, har- 
nessmakers, bookbinders, and a host of others are all 
employed in some department of this work. 

In ancient times, prepared skin, or parchment, was 
much more generally used to write upon than now. The 
most precious messages from the Lord, for the welfare 
— for the existence even — of mankind, were written on 
parchment. 

The history of the gradual growth and development 
of very many of the uses of civilized life, called arts, 
trades, and manufactures, is involved in the history of 
the improved preparation and increased use of skins, 
and their products ; because in civilized life people make 
very varied and multiplied use of the materials that, in a 
primitive way of living, have but few uses. Thus man, 
in a savage state, never dreamed of leather-bound 
books, and leather-covered furniture, of parchment for 
writing, of garments skillfully spun and woven, of feather 
beds and pillows, of mattresses stuffed with hair and 
wool. All these things, and numberless others, have 
been invented to meet the needs of a very different kind 
of life from that of the savage. 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 63 

Quotations have been made, in this chapter, from the 
Heavenly Doctrines on the subject of Skins ; the follow- 
ing- extracts, from the same source, are concerning hair, 
feathers, and wool, which are the three most important 
products of Skins. 

It cannot be too often repeated that the things of 
this world should serve as means for thinking and 
meditating upon the things of the life to come. 
Every natural object about us is created through and 
by spiritual forces which give form and existence to the 
things we see here. These spiritual forces are the good 
and truth, the Divine Love and Wisdom of the Lord, 
the Creator. No matter how common an object may 
be, no matter how familiar we are with it, the thought 
that it is a form of use, made of material created by the 
Lord, should always be connected with it. Thus we 
may keep our thoughts so uplifted as to bring them 
more and more into the sphere of heavenly thought in 
which the angels dwell. The reading of the Word is 
the only way in which to form this habit. We are 
taught in the New Church that every object mentioned 
in the Word has a spiritual meaning, and this meaning 
is explained in the Heavenly Doctrines. 



DIVINE TEACHING CONCERNING HAIR, FEATHERS, AND 

WOOL. 

A. R. 47. — "And his head and hairs white as wool, as 
snow," signifies the Divine Love of the Di- 
vine Wisdom in Firsts and in Ultimates. 



164 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

. . . Since by the head is understood love, 
and also wisdom, in their firsts, it follows 
that by hair is understood love and wisdom 
in their ultimates ; and because hairs are 
here spoken of the Son of Man, Who is the 
Lord as to the Word, by His hairs are signi- 
fied the Divine Good which is of Love, and 
the Divine Truth which is of Wisdom, in the 
ultimates of the Word ; and the ultimates of 
the Word are the things which are contained 
in the sense of its letter. That the Word in 
this sense is signified by the hairs of the Son 
of Man, or of the Lord, seems a paradox, 
but yet it is true ; this may appear from the 
passages in the Word adduced in The Doc- 
trine of the New yerusalem Concerning the 
Sacred Scripture, n. 35-49 ; where it is also 
shown that the Nazirites in the Israelitish 
Church represented the Lord as to the Word 
in ultimates, which is the sense of the letter ; 
for Nazirite, in the Hebrew tongue, signifies 
hair, or a head of hair ; hence the strength of 
Sampson, who v/as a Nazirite from the 
womb, was in his hair ; that in like manner 
Divine Truth, in the sense of the letter of 
the Word, is in its power, see in the above- 
mentioned Doctrine Concerning the Sacred 
Scripture, n. 37-49; therefore, also, the high- 
priest and his sons were strictly prohibited 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 65 

to shave the head ; and, for the same reason, 
two and forty children were torn in pieces 
by two bears, because they called Elisha, 
Baldhead. Elisha, as well as Elijah, repre- 
sented the Lord as to the Word ; bald signi- 
fies the Word without its ultimate, which, as 
was observed, is the sense of the letter ; and 
bears signify that sense of the Word sepa- 
rated from its internal sense ; they who sepa- 
rate them appear also in the spiritual world, 
like bears, but from a distance, whence it is 
evident why this was done to the children ; 
therefore also to induce baldness was the 
greatest disgrace and extreme grief. Where- 
fore, when the Israelitish nation had per- 
verted all the sense of the letter of the 
Word, this lamentation was made over 
them : " White were the Nazirites more than 
snow, whiter than milk ; darkened more than 
blackness is their form, they are not known 
in the streets " {Lam. iv, 7, 8.) Also, 
" Every head was made bald, and every 
shoulder was peeled" (Ezek. xxix, 18). 
" Upon all faces shame, and on all heads, 
baldness" (Ezek. vil, 18.) ... As the chil- 
dren of Israel dispersed by falses all the 
sense of the letter of the Word, therefore 
the prophet Ezekiel was commanded to rep- 
resent this by that he should shave his 



1 66 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

head with a razor, and burn with fire a third 
part of the hair, and smite a third part with 
a sword, and scatter a third part to the wind, 
and collect some in his skirts, which after- 
wards he should also cast into the fire (Ezek. 
v, 1-4 and fol.). 

Therefore, also, it is said in Micah : " Bald- 
ness put thou on and poll thee for thy sons 
of thy delights, enlarge thy baldness as the 
eagle; for they migrate from thee" (i, 16). 
The sons of delights are the genuine truths 
of the Church from the Word. And 
because Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babel, 
represented the Babylonian falsification of 
the Word, and the destruction of all truth 
therein, therefore it came to pass that his 
hair grew like that of eagles (Dan. iv, 33). 
Since hairs signified that holy of the Word, 
therefore it is said of the Nazirites, That 
they should not shave the hair of their head, 
because it is the Naziriteship of God upon 
their head (Numb, vi, 1-2 1) ; and therefore it 
was ordained, that the high priest and his sons 
should not shave their heads, lest they should 
die, and lest the whole house of Israel should 
be angry (Levit. x, 6). 

Now as by hairs is signified Divine Truth 
in its ultimates, which, in the Church, is the 
Word in the sense of the Letter, therefore, 



LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 67 

also, the like is said of the Ancient of Days 
in Daniel: "I beheld while the thrones were 
cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, 
His garment like white snow, and the hair 
of His head like clean wool" (vii, 9) ; that the 
Ancient of Days is the Lord, appears mani- 
festly in Micah: "Thou Bethlehem Ephra- 
tah, it is little that thou art among- the thou- 
sands of Judah, out of thee shall He come 
forth unto Me who is to be Ruler in Israel, 
and Whose going forth is from of old, from 
the days of eternity " (liv, 2) ; and in Isaiah, 
where He is called the Father of Eternity 

(«, 5). 

From these passages, and many others, 
which are not adduced by reason of their 
abundance, it may appear, that by the head 
and hairs of the Son of Man, which were as 
wool, as snow, is understood the Divine 
Love and Wisdom, in firsts and in ultimates ; 
and because by the Son of Man, the Lord as 
to the Word is understood, it follows, that 
This also is understood in firsts and in ulti- 
mates ; otherwise to what purpose would the 
Lord here in the Apocalypse, and the Ancient 
of Days in Daniel, be described as to the 
hair ? 

That by hair, the sense of the letter of the 
Word is signified, appears manifestly from 



1 68 LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 

those who are in the spiritual world ; they 
who have held the sense of the letter of the 
Word in contempt, appear bald there ; and 
on the contrary, they who have loved the 
sense of the letter of the Word, appear there 
with becoming- hair. 

It is said as wool, and as snow, because 
wool signifies good in ultimates, and snow, 
truth in ultimates; as also in Isaiah i, 18: 
For, wool is from sheep, by which is signified 
the good of charity, and snow is from waters, 
by which are signified the truths of faith. 
A. C. 8764. — That wings in the internal sense are spiritual 
truths or the truths of faith, is manifest from 
Ezekiel, 

"Thus saith the Lord Jehovih, A great 
eagle, great in wings, long in quills, full of 
feathers, which had needle-work, came upon 
Lebanon, and took a small branch of a cedar, 
and brought it into a land of trading ; then 
he took of the seed of the land, and set it in 
the field of a sower, he took it to great 
waters, it sprouted and became a luxuriant 
vine. And there was another eaole, great in 
wings, and full of feathers, to which, behold ! 
the vine applied its roots, and sent forth its 
branches into it, in a good field, at many 
waters ; it was planted to make a branch, 
and to bear fruit, that it micrht be for a vine 






LESSONS IN ANATOMY. 1 69 

of magnificence " (xvii, 1-8). This prophecy 
describes the establishment of the Spiritual 
Church by the Lord ; the eagle there is faith ; 
great in wings, and long in quills, are the 
truths of faith. 
A. C. 9331. — Isaiah li, 7, 8: " Fear ye not the reproach 
of man, and be not in consternation at their 
calumnies, because as a garment the worm 
shall devour them, and as wool the moth 
shall devour them." . . . The wool which the 
moth shall devour signifies inferior or ex- 
terior goods which are of the sensual of man, 
as appears from . . . the signification of a 
sheep from which the wool comes, that it is 
the good of charity. 



ERRATA : 

P. 147. Middle of page insert title: " The Cutis." 

P. 154. Insert title : " Membranes." 

P. 156. Insert title: " The Sense of Touch." 









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